


'For All Eternity'... Idiot

by dasvidaniya_anya



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mummy (1999)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Ancient Egypt, Curses, Egyptology, F/M, Minor Character Deaths, Mummies, Original Character(s), PLAGUES, Rated M for language and violence, THIS IS NOT SERIOUS IN ANY WAY, The author regrets So Much, a star wars/the mummy crossover, ben has lots of guns and rey has a thing for ben with guns, ben is o'connell, finn is a little shit, finn is jonathan, poe is ardeth bay, rey is evie, the medjai are like an international organisation, this was written while high on cold and flu medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22964470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasvidaniya_anya/pseuds/dasvidaniya_anya
Summary: All Rey wants to do is prove herself as a scholar, which is easier said than done when you're a woman. When Finn comes to her with an Ancient Egyptian puzzle box that contains a map to a city that had long been believed as merely a legend, of course she jumped at the chance to find it. She never expected it to lead her to many near death experiences... or to the mysterious treasure hunter Finn had stolen the box from. So, when she finds the Book of the Dead, she figures nothing bad could possibly happen if she opens it -right?Cue a curse cast thousands of years ago, a series of Biblical plagues, and a mummy sworn to kill them all.a.k.a the Star Wars/The Mummy crossover that literally nobody asked for
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29
Collections: No Harm Ever Came From Reading A Book





	'For All Eternity'... Idiot

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first Star Wars fic ever; it took me a while to decide what direction to go in - originally I wasn't going to include any characters or sub plots from the movie, but it ended up making more sense this way. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to leave a comment at the end!
> 
> Come join me on tumblr: @dasvidaniya-anya
> 
> disclaimer: the general plot of this does not belong to me, and neither do any of the characters

Thebes 1290 BC

Anck-Su-Namun was not to be touched. The pharaoh had her body painted daily, a shimmering gold to cover her skin with intricate black designs down her arms and torso that would be easily smudged by the most fleeting of contact. She was starving - a deep ache sat in the pit of her stomach that the pharaoh could not satisfy. He was old, almost three times her age, and his touch repulsed her to her very core, but he didn’t seem to care. As long as he was the pharaoh he would take what he wanted from every beautiful woman he could find, starting with her.

And then there was Imhotep, the pharaoh’s High Priest and Keeper of the Dead. His very presence excited her, the scent of him made her pulse rush like no man ever had before, and his gaze made her giddy with infatuation. He was the most beautiful man she’s ever beheld, and the only person she’d ever craved.

They couldn’t touch, of course. So many times they’d come close to crossing that line. Her body’s every sinew cried out for his touch, to feel the warmth of his skin on hers, to find out if his skin was as soft as it looked.

To feel his lips on hers.

They’d talked about fleeing, running to Cairo or Alexandria or Giza or anywhere that wasn’t here, but they knew it was impossible. They wanted to be free, but they could never be free if Seti was looking for them. He _would_ look for them. And he would find them, eventually. And probably kill both of them, if not just Imhotep, dooming her to be under his power once again.

So they made a new plan. To be free, they would have to commit a great sin, a crime against the people of Egypt, but it was the only way. She would pay for it, but not for long, Imhotep had assured her, and she trusted him. He would save her and they could be together.

She waited for the priest in one of the many rooms the pharaoh had given her. It was decked from top to bottom in gold, like the rest of the palace, including her. How she loathed gold now. She itched to be rid of it, to gaze upon her own skin for more than a few mere moments when she bathed, to live between walls covered in deep blues, purples and greens.

The large (gold) doors at the end of the room opened, revealing Imhotep and his priests, all of whom would protect him at any cost. Her love crossed the room with determined strides, coming to stand before her, leaving barely a hairsbreadth between them. Reverently, she reached up to his face, lightly trailing her fingers from his brows to his shoulder. Even that sent her pulse rushing, and left a slight shimmering trail on his skin. Something inside Imhotep broke. He pulled her to him by her shoulders and fused their mouths together in a fierce kiss.

Time stopped for Anck-Su-Namun then. Her first real kiss, her first real love, her first real choice was all happening in one earth-shattering moment. She felt the paint on her arms smear under Imhotep’s fingers. There was no going back now.  
All too soon, Imhotep was pulling away from her. The priests had almost closed the door when Seti came to see her. He pushed his way in unannounced, his face contorting with confusion when he noticed Imhotep priests bowing deeply to him.

“What are you doing here?” He turned to face his mistress, who was now leaning casually against the statue next to her. Imhotep had hidden himself away. It didn’t take Seti long to notice the paint, which had been thoroughly smudged by Imhotep’s hands. “Who has touched you?” He growled, marching over to her. Anck-Su-Namun looked up at him through her lashes, batting her eyes at him innocently. In her silence, Imhotep stepped out of the shadows. “ _Imhotep!_ My trusted priest, how could you do this?”

Seti’s back was turned to her now, having already dismissed her as a threat. She made eye contact with Imhotep over the pharaoh’s shoulder. It was now or never. Anck-Su-Namun raised her arm above her head, knife poised. She brought it down between his shoulder blades, taking a twisted sort of satisfaction out of the pained cry that escaped his lips. Imhotep delivered the next blow to the pharaoh’s front, sending the man down onto his knees. He stopped struggling after a while.

Then the Medjai - the pharaoh’s personal guards - burst into the room, weapons drawn. Imhotep’s priests surrounded him and started to drag him away from the scene of the crime. He fought against them, struggling to get back to her.

“I won’t leave you!” He cried. Anck-Su-Namun placed a gentle hand on his face.

“You are the only one that can resurrect me! You have to go.” The priests pulled him out of the room before the Medjai could see him. Anck-Su-Namun stood before them defiantly, knife poised dangerously. “My body will no longer be his temple!” She cried and thrust her blade into her heart.

For murdering the pharaoh, Anck-su-namun’s body was to be cursed in the next life. This burden fell to Imhotep, as was his duty as High Priest. Her body was mummified in the palace, her vital organs removed and placed in five sacred canopic jars. Imhotep was to use the Book of Amun-Ra - the Book of the Living - to send his love’s condemned spirit on a journey to the dark underworld, where she would be punished for all eternity, but he couldn’t do it.

Imhotep waited until nightfall, then he and his priests smuggled Anck-su-namun’s body out of the city. They journeyed as fast as they could through the desert, never stopping until they arrived at their destination. There was only one more thing Imhotep needed to get her back, and it could only be found beneath the City of the Dead. If everything went to plan, they would be gone before anyone had figured out what Imhotep had planned to do.

*

Hamunaptra 1290 BC

Everything was in place. The Book of the Dead was located easily, and the canopic jars they’d taken were in perfect condition. They lay Anck-Su-Namun’s body out on the stone altar in the mausoleum, near a deep pool of water. Performing the incantation would be easy, and it would be done before they were discovered. Few people knew how to get to the City of the Dead. He would take her to a city larger than Thebes where they could be safe in their anonymity, then they could grow old together.  
How the Medjai found them he didn’t know. All Imhotep knew was that one moment he was seconds away from having her back, then the next moment he watched as the life drained out of her and he was dragged away.

Imhotep expected a painful punishment for his crimes. In fact, he expected to die for them, and he would, in a way, but he was going to be made to suffer not just in this life, but in the next. His priests were mummified alive, but because he had led them to their blasphemy, the pharaoh’s guards believed Imhotep deserved the Hom-Dai, therefore cursing him for all eternity. 

The book and canopic jars were placed in a chest and hidden inside the base of the statue of Anubis, where they couldn’t be found. 

Imhotep’s corpse was placed in a coffin and locked inside a sarcophagus, then buried below the statue of Anubis, where he couldn’t escape. 

If anyone was able to locate all three, they could bring Imhotep back, and he would unleash upon the world the ten plagues of Egypt and become immortal, a scourge upon all of mankind. The Medjai made it their sacred duty from that day to always watch over the city, to make sure the monster was never found.

Death, however, was not the end.

*

Hamunaptra 1923 AD

“Maintenez vous positions!” Ben Solo ordered his troops. The French Foreign Legion were prepared to risk it all to get to the city, but looking out at the sheer size of the opposing force, he began to have doubts that they would succeed. They were being charged upon by thousands of Tuareg men, each of them riding horses and armed with guns and scimitars. It was so hopeless that their leader, Colonel Snoke, took off, leaving Ben in charge of his Legionnaires.

“Oh God. I think you just got a promotion.” His right hand man, Armitage Hux, muttered next to him.

“You’re with me, right, Hux?”

“Oh yes, Ben. Seeing you so brave makes me brave.” There was something off about his tone, but there was no time to think about it. The enemy got closer. “No!” Hux shot up and ran off, searching for somewhere safe to hide. Ben groaned, but didn’t have time to stop him.

“Ready!” He yelled, feeling tense in anticipation. The ground began to quake beneath the horses hooves. “Fire!” Gunshots rang out across the battlefield. Men in brown robes fell to the ground. For a brief, sweet moment, it seemed like they stood a chance.  
Then the horses were on top of them.

Ben’s own men began to join their fallen opponents.

They had to retreat back into the heart of the city. They lost the high ground. They lost their hold on the city. Ben shot at every brown blur he could see, and more often than not he hit his target. There were too many of them. He spotted Hux a little way off, running like a madman towards a small room with a heavy stone door.

“Get inside, Hux! Hurry!” Ben dashed after him. It was probably the most cowardly thing he’d ever done in his life, but it was either that or die. All his men would do something similar, he was sure. Hux started to force the door shut before Ben was anywhere near him. “Don’t shut the door!”

He shut the door. Ben slammed into it with the full force of his body. Pain crackled through his bones and made him dizzy for a moment, until a bullet ricocheted off the door near his head. He sprinted full pelt towards the crumbling fortress until a large statue blocked his path. Three soldiers approached him, swords drawn. He had no bullets and nowhere to run.

The horses went ape-shit and took off, taking their riders with them. A cold chill washed over Ben as the wind picked up. Sand swirled around his feet, knocking him over in his haste to get away. A wave of sand crashed over him. A screaming face appeared in the sand at the base of the statue. Part of him was convinced he could hear a voice in the wind telling him he was going to die. 

Ben stumbled out of the city as fast as he could, steadfastly refusing to look at any of the bodies. One caught his eye, though. The bloody, lifeless body of Colonel Snoke.

*

High on a ridge above the city, a small group of Medjai descendants watched the battle from afar, preparing to stop anyone uncovering the cursed priest’s body. As usual, the men tore each other to shreds in pursuit of treasure. Only one man emerged alive.

“What should we do with him?” Rose asked, her voice muffled under the scarf she had pulled up above her nose to keep the sand away. Poe considered the man for a moment.

“The creature remains undiscovered. He won’t survive the desert.” The man looked up at them. They turned away and disappeared back into the desert. He wouldn’t be coming back after what he’d seen.

*

Cairo Museum of Antiquities 1926 AD

It took more effort than Rey was prepared to admit to haul her stack of books to the top of the ladder. She felt it shake precariously underneath her as she reached the top, her arm screaming for relief. Once she had placed the volumes on top of the mahogany case, she dabbed the sweat off her brow with her handkerchief. She picked up the first book.

“Seth volume one...two… three.” she muttered to herself as she placed each book in the right place. “Tuthmosis?” Her brow furrowed as she realised she’d mistakenly taken a book meant for the shelf behind her. 

Rey turned and tried to judge the distance between her and the correct shelf. It was close. Temptingly close. She knew she should just move onto the next book and take the wrong one back down with her, but she had been stacking the shelves all day and had become tired.

And it was _so close_.

She decided to go for it, and stretched as far as she could to the opposing shelf. _So close_. Her tongue poked out from between her lips as she concentrated, reaching just a bit further. _Almost there_. She gave one final push, felt the edge of the book brush against the shelf, then the ladder moved beneath her. Rey let out a small scream, the book dropped to the floor as she clung for dear life to the top of the ladder. She was now balanced precariously between two of the shelves. Every move she made caused the ladder to shake. She didn’t know what to do. If she fell she could get hurt, or worse, the library could somehow become damaged. Maybe she could control the ladder enough to maneuver to the nearest wall. 

Rey shifted her weight, almost sighing in relief as it shuffled forward the slightest amount. She repeated the movement. Forward again. Repeat. She took a steadying breath and moved once again, this time with slightly more force. It was too much - she teetered precariously towards the ‘S’ section. Shifting her weight to counteract the shaking seemed to work for a moment but she was quickly sent careening into the case.

Surprisingly, she came out unscathed.

The library, however, did not.

Case after case came crashing down around her, and all Rey could do was watch horror. Loose papers fluttered through the air in slow motion compared to the speed of the shelves. The door behind her was flung open, and Rey’s eyes snapped shut in shame as she heard her mentor angrily kick a book away from him.

“The sacred texts!” Luke boomed, causing her entire body to clench. She was fired, she was sure. “What did I do to deserve to have such a catastrophe work for me? Why do I bother with you, girl?” Her mentor seethed, rightly so, but Rey still cringed at his venomous words. 

“You-you-you keep me around because,” she fumbled, praying for a reason to come to her quickly, she loved this job. “Because I’m the only one who knows how to properly use and catalogue this library! And, I’m the only person for a thousand miles that can read and write Ancient Egyptian, or understand hieroglyphics and hieratic -”

“I keep you around,” Luke interrupted her, not caring to let her defend herself, “because your parents were our finest partons. I would have let you go a long time ago if it weren’t for them, no matter how useful you are.”

“Oh.” Rey felt tears burn in her eyes but refused to let them fall. This grumpy old bastard would _not_ make her cry.

“Now, I don’t care how long it takes you to clear this mess, but you’re not leaving here until it's done!” He stormed out, his robes billowing angrily behind him. Rey groaned and lowered her head into her hands. She was in for an even longer night in the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. 

She set to work after taking a moment to calm down. Since all the books had been flung from the shelves, the cases should be lighter than usual, right? She attempted to push one upright. It didn’t budge. Lighter, but not light enough.

Rey growled in frustration and kicked the side of the case. How on earth was she supposed to sort out this mess if she couldn’t even lift the shelves? She felt tears prickle in her eyes again.

“This is definitely an improvement on your old filing system.” Rey shrieked at the voice in her ear, whipping around to whack its owner on the arm. He merely grinned at her.

“Finn! I thought I told you to stop visiting me at work. Just because you’ve ruined your own career, doesn’t mean you need to ruin mine. I love my job, and I happen to be very good at it.”

“Sure,” he quipped, looking pointedly around the room. Rey tugged frustratedly at her top bun.

“Don’t start. I’ve just had the worst day. The Bembridge Scholars have rejected my application _again_ , apparently I don’t have enough field experience, but I can’t get work in the _‘field’_ because I’m a woman.”

“I’m sorry, Rey.”

“What do you want Finn?” She sighed. Finn perked up as if he’d only just realised why he’d come in the first place.

“Oh yeah!” He rummaged around in the leather satchel that hung by his side, cheering in victory when he found what he was looking for. “I found this, and was hoping you could tell me what it is.” He held the object out to her. Rey gasped and took it from him, blinking as she turned it over in her hands. It was a small, hexagonal box with strange carvings engraved into its surface.

“Where did you find this?”

“I was on a dig in Thebes.” He looked at her awed expression. “I never find anything good, please tell me I found something good.” Rey pressed the sides of the box gently, and it popped open, revealing a small, folded map inside the box.

“Finn,” she breathed, “I think you’ve found something _extraordinary_.”

*

“It’s a map from the twelfth dynasty!” Rey could barely contain her excitement. Luke seemed unimpressed, his face blank as he looked at her. “It’s from Seti the First’s reign, I’m sure of it. See that cartouche there?”

“Two questions: who was this Seti guy and, more importantly, was he rich?” Finn asked. Rey nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes! It’s believed he was the richest of all the pharaohs.”

“Then I like him very much.” Finn grinned victoriously.

“I think this map points the way to the city of Hamunaptra. It’s said that’s where the wealthiest Egyptians were buried with their riches.” Finn’s smile grew impossibly wider. “I know it’s widely believed the city didn’t exist, but my reading has led me to believe that it did, but is well hidden.”

“An entire underground treasure chamber…” Finn whispered, his eyes wide and shining.

“Hmm,” Luke grunted, folding his hands on his desk. “And what, exactly, do you plan on doing with this?” 

“Use it, of course! If we could find Hamunaptra, we could uncover priceless knowledge and artifacts of a lost city that we didn’t even know was real! We must pursue this.”

“No.” Was all he said.

“ _No?_ ” Rey and Finn cried incredulously.

“No,” Luke repeated firmly, “I will not have this sacred institution’s reputation besmirched because it authorised a foolish expedition to find a _fictional_ city with what is _clearly a fake map_.” 

“But, Doctor Skywalker, if you would just listen -”

“Enough, Rey!” He erupted, standing so quickly he almost gave them whiplash. “I will not agree to this naïve idea of yours! You will not go to find this city, and you will never go out into the field if you keep believing in such childish stories!” The hand holding the map leaned too close to a candle on his desk, and the next thing they knew the map was up in flames. Luke yelped and threw it to the ground.

“ _No!_ ” Rey and Finn cried out, both of them rushing towards it, patting the flames out furiously. Rey gingerly picked it up, her chest tight as she slowly turned it to face her. It could still be read, but the lost city had been burned off. She glared at Luke, a feeling in her gut telling her that, despite appearances, that hadn’t been an accident. She opened her mouth to speak.

“That is all, Rey. _Leave_.” Luke grumbled, already turning his back to her. Rey bared her teeth in anger, ready to lay into the man, when Finn grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the study.

“What are we going to _do?_ ” Rey groaned once they were out of earshot. Finn looked at her quizzically.

“What do you mean?”

“Luke said I couldn’t go.”

“So?”

“So I can’t go?”

“Of course you can.”

“What!”

“Lighten up, Rey. He’s your boss, not your jailer.”

“I can’t just leave!”

“Yes you can.”

“But -”

“Look, do you want to find Hamunaptra or not?”

“I do, but -”

“Then be a big girl and break a few rules. If you found Hamunaptra and were able to properly document our findings, the Bembridge Scholars would _never_ be able to refuse you.”

“When are we leaving?”

“In two days. We can sort everything out tomorrow.”

*

Cairo Prison 1926 AD

“Finn, why are we here?” Rey whispered, her nose crinkled at the foul stench of the prison. Finn patter her shoulder, unbothered by the smell. She clutched her book tighter to her chest.

“The man I stole the box from is in here.” He replied flippantly. Rey scowled and punched his arm.

“The man you stole it from? You told me you found it on a dig!” She cried. Finn looked at her for a moment, then shrugged.

“I was on a dig there, it just so happens that at the time I found the box, I was in a bar.” Rey gave him a glare that would have made anyone else crumble in fear. “Look, Rey, the man had the map to Hamunaptra. If we want to get there, don’t you think he’d be a valuable asset?”

“ _Fine_.” She pushed past him, coming to stand by the malodorous warden that had insisted on accompanying them. He’d come to a stop outside one of the many crude cells in the place, and was currently ordering the guards around. The guards marched inside.

“Sorry, Mister Plutt,” Rey got his attention, “but, what did this man do to get in here?”

“I didn’t know, but when I heard you were coming, I asked him.” There was a loud scuffle from inside the cell. “He said he was _‘just looking for a good time’_.” The guards came out with the man they’d come here to see.

He was _huge_ , the largest man Rey had ever seen, and he was positively feral. His dark eyes were wild, and his hair was long and unkempt, reaching below his shoulders. He thrashed against the guards, a guttural growl tearing through his lips. Rey took a reflexive step back when he fixed his gaze on her. Then Finn.

“Do I know you?” He snapped. “And who’s the broad?” Finn pulled Rey protectively behind him.

“Broad?” Rey repeated indignantly, stepping out from behind Finn.

“Oh, no, we haven’t met.” Finn stuttered, and it was only then that Rey realised he didn’t have a plan. “I’m just a local missionary here to spread the word of God to the inmates. This is my friend, Rey.”

“Huh.” The man gave her a slow once over. “I guess you’re passable.” Rey grit her teeth and forced a pleasant smile onto her face.

“Hello,” she spoke, willing her voice to be steady as she addressed him. “We found your puzzle box, and we were hoping you could tell us more about it.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” he glanced between them, “you want to know how to get to Hamunaptra.” Rey couldn’t have hidden her curiosity if she’d tried.

“How do you know the box relates to Hamunaptra?” She breathed.

“Yeah, that’s where I was when I found it.” He snapped.

“Are you saying you’ve actually been there?”

“Lady, my whole damn garrison believed in the city so much that they marched there _from Libya_ without orders. I’m the only one who came out alive.” He rolled his eyes, before looking at Finn again “Hey, I do know you! You stole from me!” Before anyone could react, Finn was reeling back from a blow to the head. The guards were immediately on the inmate, hitting him savagely. 

“Ow.” Finn winced, gingerly touching his cheek. A bruise was already beginning to form under his eye.

“I’m not going to tell you that you didn’t deserve that.” The warden became distracted by a similar scuffle across the yard. Rey left Finn to feel sorry for himself, instead choosing to crouch before the prisoner. “Could you tell me where the city is? The exact location?”

“You want to know?” She nodded, leaning closer to him. 

“Yes, please.” The man gestured for her to come closer. She leaned in until they were barely a hairsbreadth apart.

“You really want to know?”

“Yes,” she breathed. The man reached an arm between the bars and threaded his fingers into hair, tugging her forward into a fierce kiss. All Rey could do was flounder.

“Then get me the hell out of here!” He yelled as the guards dragged him away. Rey gaped after him and brought her fingers up to her lips. She whirled around to face the warden.

“Where are they taking him?”

“To be hanged. Apparently, he had a _very_ good time!”

*

The prison was filled with the riotous sound of cheers, both inmates and guards alike screaming for the execution, practically foaming at the mouth with bloodlust. Rey felt her stomach twist in apprehension. Unkar Plutt pulled up a seat beside her.

“I will pay one hundred pounds to save his life.”

“I would pay one hundred pounds _myself_ just to see him hanged.” He replied before he called out to the hangman to prepare the noose.

“Two hundred,” she felt her heart rate pick up. She _needed_ to save this man, everything depended on it. The warden rolled his eyes. The hangman tightened the noose around the man’s neck. “Five hundred!” The warden froze, intrigued.

“What else? I am a lonely man…” The sleazeball placed his hand on her upper thigh, causing her stomach to turn violently. Rey screeched and used all her strength to bring her book down onto his fingers. Plutt yelped, and the people around them laughed. He yelled to the hangman to speed things up.

“Any last requests?” He spat at the man. 

“Yeah, untie me and let me go.” He bit out in reply. The hangman froze and looked to the warden in confusion.

“What are you doing? _Hang him!_ ” He cried, shooting out of his seat and leaning over the balcony. The hangman nodded and pulled the lever next to him, dropping the man. There was a sickening thud as his own weight pulled at his neck, but Rey took solace in the fact nothing snapped. “No break! We will now have to watch him strangle to death.” The warden didn’t sound upset by this.

“That man knows the way to Hamunaptra. If you let him go we’ll give you a cut of the treasure.” The warden’s head whipped around.

“How much?”

“Ten percent.”

“Fifty.”

“Twenty.”

“Forty.”

“Thirty.”

“Twenty Five.” Rey beamed at the man’s stupidity.

“Aha! Deal!” She thrust her hand out to him. Plutt groaned, but ultimately had to accept his mistake. He shook her hand and called for the man to be cut loose. Rey stood and watched as the man caught his breath, his skin slowly turning back from the deep purple it had started to become. She couldn’t help but smile with pride in herself.

*

Giza Port 1926 AD

The port was bustling with life when Rey and Finn arrived. They were the first ones there, unsurprisingly. She couldn’t imagine Solo was a man with impeccable time management. She’d be surprised if he even turned up on time.

Solo. That was the man’s name. Ben Solo. It wasn’t exactly what she expected a man of his stature to be called, but for some reason, she couldn’t think of a more suitable name. She shook her head to rid him from her thoughts. Distractions could not be tolerated on this journey, it was too important. She turned to Finn.

“Do you think he’ll show up?” 

“Yes. I know you think he’s a scoundrel, but I know the type. If he says he’ll be here, he will.”

“I don’t just think he’s a scoundrel,” Rey pursed her lips, a vexing mix of repulsion and attraction rushing through her veins at the thought of Ben Solo. “I think he’s vile, rude, repellant, and I don’t like him one little bit.”

“Anyone I know?” The man in question appeared between them. _Fuck_ , Rey thought, closing her eyes for the briefest moment before turning to face him. At the sight of him, her brain promptly short circuited.

His hair was cropped shorter, barely brushing against his shoulders now. And he’d showered, that much was certain. He smelled _really good_. Rey cleared her throat to banish that last thought. 

“Uh…” was all she could muster in response. 

“All set, Solo?” Finn asked, glancing at the man’s gunny sack and bag. Solo gave a firm, solitary nod in response. “Good, then let’s board.” He gestured to the riverboat. Solo appraised them both for a moment. Rey waited until Finn had started up the ramp before addressing Solo herself.

“Can you promise me this isn’t all some giant hoax? Because if it is, you better hope the desert kills you before I get to you.” She fixed him with a look that usually made Finn start sweating. Solo, however, seemed unphased.

“My men walked from Libya to Egypt because they believed in it’s existence. I’ll get you there. Trust me.” The two had entered some sort of nonverbal battle of wills as they maintained eye contact. They were interrupted by a foul man with an even fouler stench.  
“What are you doing here?” Rey groaned. Plutt gave her a sleazy grin.

“I’m here to protect my investment.” He announced as he waddled up the ship’s ramp. Rey rolled her eyes. She did not want to have to put up with his nauseating stares the entire trip. She turned to pick up her cases, only to find Solo beating her to it.

“Let’s go.” He headed onto the boat, expecting her to follow.

*

The Nile 1926 AD

It was dark by the time the group had properly settled onto the boat. Ben came out of his room to find a space to sort out his weapons. And if he bumped into Rey, well that would just be a coincidental bonus.

Rey was not what he expected her to be when she showed up in the prison. From the look of her, he expected a weak, brainless thing, but what he really got was a warrior who could put most of the soldiers he knew in their place. Her inner fire intrigued him. He wanted to see more of it, to get her to engage with him. She was incredibly hot when she was angry.

Ben froze at the thought. When did this come about? He knew, objectively, that she was a very attractive woman, but he’d worked with women before and had no problem drawing the line between personal and professional no matter how beautiful they were.  
He was just surprised by her, he decided. Now that he was used to her, he’d be fine. He nodded, satisfied at this assessment, and headed out onto the main deck. Finn was there, gambling, unsurprisingly, with two men and a woman he’d never met.

“Finn.” He greeted. The younger man looked up from his cards.

“Solo! Have a seat. This is Phasma, Johnson and Mitaka, they’re American too.”

“Hi,” he nodded. “I’ll pass. I only bet with my life, never my money.” He turned to leave.

“What if we bet you five hundred bucks that we get to Hamunaptra before you?” Mitaka drawled, a competitive glint in his eye.

“Who says we’re going to Hamunaptra?”

“He did.” Phasma gestured to Finn. Ben pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment.

“And what makes you think you’ll get there before us?”

“We’ve got a guide who’s been there.” Johnson seemed incredibly smug about this.

“What a coincidence, because Solo’s also -” Ben cut Finn off by hitting him with his gunny sack as he slung it over his shoulder.

“Well, then, you’ve got yourselves a bet.” He nodded in farewell. “Evening.” He walked off in search of a table.

*

Rey had found a semi-secluded area on deck where she could read in peace. Distantly, she could hear Finn and his new companions bragging about how rich they were going to be after the trip. She rolled her eyes. Of course she was the only one who was only interested in all the knowledge that could be discovered there. 

“Hey,” Solo managed to sneak up on her, causing her to shriek in surprise. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“The only thing that scares me are your manners.” She snapped, turning back to the book in front of her.

“Ah, still mad about the kiss.”

“If you call _that_ a kiss.” God, was she _flirting?_ He pursed his lips and thrust his pack open on the table. Rey gasped when she saw the arsenal he was carrying.

“Are we heading into war, Mister Solo?”

“There’s something out there. Something dangerous.”

“I don’t believe in fairytales and superstition, Mister Solo. It’s said that the city had rooms full of books and historical artefacts, the Book of Amun-Ra in particular. That’s what I’m hoping to find.”

“And the fact that it’s made of solid gold makes no difference to you?” She beamed at him.

“You know your history!”

“I know my treasure.” He cocked a gun. Rey’s mouth went dry.

“Um, by the way, why did you kiss me?” 

“I dunno,” he chuckled slightly. “I was about to be hanged, seemed like a good idea at the time.” Rey’s heart sunk. She sent a fierce scowl his way as she pushed back from the table and stormed away. 

*

Ben couldn’t figure out what he’d done to offend her. A flicker of movement behind some crates caught his attention, and a familiar silhouette poked out from behind them. Solo pulled the man out by the cuff of his shirt.

“Hello, Hux.” He growled, slamming the smaller man against a nearby wall. “I should’ve known it was you taking the Americans to Hamunaptra.”

“H-hey, Solo, long time no see.” Hux was trembling in fear. 

“So, what’s the deal? They pay you to lead them to the City of the Dead and then you _abandon them?_ ”

“Sadly, these people are smart. They’re only paying me half now, I get the other half when I get them back to Cairo. Why are you here?”

“See that girl?” Ben looked over to where Rey was stroking a camel in its pen. She noticed them looking and left with a huff. “She saved my life, so I’m taking her where she wants to go.”

“You always did have more balls than brains.” Hux laughed at his own joke. He stopped when he felt the barrel of Ben’s gun pressed against his temple. “P-please don’t! Think of my wife and children!”

“You don’t have any!” Ben snapped.

“Someday I might.” Hux squeaked. Ben rolled his eyes and picked Hux up.

“Goodbye, Armitage.” He tossed the man overboard. That’s when he noticed the wet footprints going down the hall towards Rey’s room. His heart jumped to his throat when he realised someone had boarded the boat and was probably on their way to her right now.

*

“George Bembridge, eighteen sixty five...” Rey read her book out loud as she paced her room, trying to keep herself focused on the text. “Eighteen sixty five...” She threw her book onto her bed in frustration. “Pull yourself together, girl, it wasn’t that good a kiss!” _But it was_ , that traitorous inner voice replied, _it was the best kiss you’ve ever had_. “It’s the _only_ kiss I’ve ever had.” She scoffed back.

She pulled the ties out of her hair, sighing in relief as the tightness in her scalp ebbed away. She tugged her brush through her brown locks to straighten it out. Her mind immediately went back to Solo. It had been easy to find him distasteful when his looks had matched the way he behaved, but now that he’d cleaned up, Rey was finding it harder to stay away from him. He was incredibly handsome, that much was obvious, but there was something about his brash manner that drew her to him. He didn’t play games or hide things, he was just himself and didn’t care if people liked it or not.

A knock on the door pulled her out of her reverie. She groaned, thinking it was probably Finn coming to get her to bail him out, or maybe it would be Solo coming to insult her again. What she got was a man dressed all in black holding a knife to her throat.  
“Where is the map?” He growled as he pushed her back into the room. She pointed to it with a shaking hand. “And the key.”

“What key?” The knife pressed deeper into her skin. She really didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and if she made it out of this alive only to find out that either Finn or Solo had a key, she was going to be pissed. Her door burst open to reveal Solo, guns drawn.

“Rey!” He yelled. She’d never been so happy to see someone in her life. In her assailant's moment of distraction, Rey picked up the candle she’d been using to study her books and shoved it into his eye. He stumbled back in pain, letting her go so she was able to run to Solo as he shot at another man who had been trying to get in through her window. The oil lamp by her little sofa was caught in the crossfire of the commotion, setting fire to her couch and her curtains. 

Despite his pain, the man ran towards them, arms outstretched. Rey yelped and left her room, Solo hot on her heels. They were at the end of the hallway before Rey realised her mistake.

“The map!” She shrieked, doubling back on herself, only to be stopped by Solo.

“Keep going. I’m the map.” He began reloading his guns. By now, dozens more of these people had boarded the boat, sending passengers into a mass panic. Bullets were flying from all sides, and the fire had quickly spread through the boat. Solo made them pause in a semi-sheltered spot on deck. It was then that Rey decided that, should she ever find herself in a similar situation in the future, that four guns wasted too much time when it came to reloading. Solo wasn’t concentrating on his surroundings; bullets were creeping closer to his head and yet he wasn’t moving. Rey could have screamed at him - it was tempting - but she barely managed to pull him out of the way before two bullets hit the wall where his head had been. He gave her a charming smile, then stepped into the frey, taking down their opponents with impressive accuracy. All Rey had to do was hold his bag and stay behind him.

Solo managed to get Rey to the edge of the boat. He looked down at her, pursing his lips at the sight of her white nightdress. It wasn’t entirely practical considering the situation, not that there was anything they could do about it now.

“Can you swim?” He shouted over the commotion.

“Of course, if it’s necessary!” She shrieked when he scooped her up. “Don’t you _dare!_ ” Solo tossed her overboard. He could breathe now that there wasn’t a chance she’d burn to death. Plutt ran over to him.

“Solo, what are we going to do?” The man was frantic. Solo rolled his eyes. 

“Stay here, I’ll go get help.” He didn’t wait to see what the man did, he just jumped over after Rey.

*

Finn scrambled like a madman to get to Rey’s room. All hell had broken loose during his poker game - which he had been losing - and he couldn’t find her or Solo anywhere. If something had happened to her he’d lose it.

“Rey!” He burst into her room, only to find it up in flames. He crashed into one of the robed men, sending him stumbling into the fire, setting him ablaze. The man then - despite his predicament - crawled over the ground, stretching as far as he could to reach the puzzle box that had started this disaster of an expedition. Finn darted over and snatched it up, then ran back onto the deck. He slid to a stop at a barricade made by the Americans. They were having a grand old time, whooping and hollering as they shot at the attackers. Their Egyptologist - a grumpy man by the name of Doctor Pryde - was cowering behind them with his hands over his ears.

Finn watched them in disgust for a few moments. What kind of animals relished in a firefight such as this? The man who had been in Rey’s room staggered through the door, still on fire - _would he not just die?_ \- and ran towards Finn. Phasma turned at his frightened shriek and fired a frankly unnecessary amount of bullets at his attacker. Not that Finn had any complaints. The man fell off the edge of the boat with a final cry.

“Bloody good show, lads! And I didn’t panic at all.” He had enough time to give a self-satisfied smile before he was tackled off the ship by a different man.

*

All four of them were thoroughly miserable by the time they’d waded to shore. Rey was drenched and shivering, her arms wrapped tightly around her body to conserve heat and to keep Plutt from staring at her. Finn took pity on her and gave her his jacket.  
“Hey, Solo!” A voice boomed from the other side of the river. Rey turned to see a weasley looking redhead grinning victoriously in Solo’s direction. “Looks like I got all the horses!”

“Hey, Hux!” Solo yelled back, his hands cupped around his mouth. “You’re on the wrong side of the river!” The man - Hux - scowled and turned to get his bearings. His groan floated across the river to Solo’s delighted ears. Rey came to stand at Solo’s side.  
“He seems nice.” She observed, her voice devoid of any sincerity. Solo hummed in agreement. “What are we going to do now? We’ve lost everything.” Solo looked around for a moment.

“We’ll camp out here tonight. There’s a Bedouin trading post nearby, we’ll go there in the morning to get supplies.” Finn and Plutt didn’t seem to relish in the idea of sleeping outside, but they had no other choice as there wasn’t a village around for miles. Rey and Solo gathered firewood while the others searched for the comfiest patch of land to lay down on. Solo even taught Rey how to light a fire using dry twigs.

*

Bedouin Trading Post 1926 AD

They headed out in search of the trading post as soon as the sun rose. Rey had a surprisingly good night’s sleep considering the circumstances, and was beginning to think that perhaps she could get used to exploring like Solo did. Finn and Plutt were having a far less thrilling experience, and had slept very little the previous night. Rey wasn’t sure that Solo had slept at all, or if he had stayed up to keep watch all night.

The sun was beating down on them by the time they’d found it. It was noisier than Rey expected, everyone speaking as loud as possible to be heard over the crowd. She loved it, though, and felt a thrill go through her at the prospect of being able to observe a culture she knew very little about. First thing first, however, she had to find some clothes. She spotted a group of women inside a tent full of what seemed to be women’s clothes.

“I’m going to go over there and see if I can get some clothes.” She pointed over to the tent. “You boys better find some food, water and transportation if we want to have any hope of getting there alive.” She made her way over to the women, hoping at least to appear as if she didn’t want to be wandering around in the desert in an almost see through nightdress. The tent turned out to be filled with different kinds of fabric, and after exchanging brief pleasantries with the woman in their native tongue, she explained their situation and offered what little money she had in exchange for a robe of some kind. The women were more than happy to help, first taking her measurements, then letting her sit with a warm cup of loose leaf tea while they worked until it was time to try it on.

They had made her a beautiful black Bedouin dress out of some lightweight cotton. It had straps instead of sleeves so she would have less restraint on her arms, and they had provided her with a covering for her hair and face made out of a shimmery translucent fabric in the same shade as the dress. She thanked them for their help and made to leave, but they insisted on accompanying her back to her companions. They were some of the nicest people Rey had ever met.

*

Ben watched in a mixture of amusement and exasperation as Finn tried to haggle with a man over the price of four camels. Since the man had far less knowledge of the language and customs of these people than his best friend, it was not going well. He’d now turned to shouting at the man in English. Could he step in and help? Probably. Was he going to? Absolutely not. Eventually, Finn managed to get the camels at an almost reasonable price, and they were off in search of Rey. Plutt had gone to browse the stalls for anything that seemed to be valuable, and they did not miss him.

“We probably could have got them for free, in exchange for Rey,” he joked, slinging his gunny sack over his shoulder. Finn chuckled.

“Incredibly tempting, isn’t it?” Rey was just exiting the women’s tent as they approached, dressed in an elegant black dress that made Ben’s brain stop working. She looked beautiful - her hazel eyes gleaming with intelligence and humour over the top of her veil and wisps of hair curling down the side of her face - and now he couldn’t form a proper sentence. Fuck.

“Yeah,” was all he could manage. It took them half an hour to get the other supplies they needed, then they were off, headed on a long journey into the Sahara. Ben felt a tug of warning in his gut, but knew he needed to press on. He could protect Rey from whatever was in that city.

*

The Sahara Desert 1926 AD

Their journey would take about three days from the trading post, if they didn’t stop for long breaks and took shifts sleeping so someone would be awake to guide the camels. Ben spent the time listening to Rey talk about the city - and Ancient Egypt in general - mostly to revel in how effervescent she became when she talked about her life’s passion. Finn drew the short end of the stick, riding behind them with Plutt, who had started to stink underneath the desert sun. 

The knot in Ben’s stomach tightened when he noticed a familiar outcrop of rocks in the distance in the late evening of their second day. They were almost there. A traitorous part of him wanted to mislead Rey, to take her away from that haunted place so she wouldn’t get hurt by whatever evil hid there, but knew he couldn’t bear to let her down. Who was he to deny her her childhood dream? He’d just have to keep a sharp eye for any danger.

It was a little before sunrise by the time they reached the right spot. He could tell Rey had a thousand questions when he got them to stand and wait, but she was stopped by the arrival of their American rivals, who seemed to have hired themselves a dozen workers in a nearby town. Ben greeted them with a curt nod, refraining from making any comments on their decision to ride horses in a desert. Surprisingly, Hux was the only one with sense.

“What are we waiting for?” Johnson demanded impatiently, scowling at their guide.

“Be patient.” Hux snapped, fixing his eyes on the horizon, his camel shifting uncomfortably beneath him. Rey appeared at Ben’s side.

“What _are_ we waiting for?” She whispered, looking across at him with wide, curious eyes.

“We’re about to be shown the way,” the sun began to rise over the rocky outcrop. “Get ready.” 

“Remember our bet, Solo. First one into the city wins five hundred dollars.” Phasma taunted, her grip on the reins tightening in anticipation. Ben nodded at her before turning away from them. Next to him, Rey straightened up in her seat, eyes fixed on the shimmering lights that had appeared in the sky. Crumbling stone buildings began to appear among the rocks and sand; Ben heard her sharp intake of breath at the sight before they all took off. The camels quickly outpaced the horses, and he found himself shoulder to shoulder with Rey. She gave him a brilliant, exhilarated smile as they shot ahead of the others, one that he found himself returning.

Rey began encouraging her camel to go faster, quickly leaving Ben behind as she pulled ahead of them all. Her joyous laugh floated through the air and her hair flapped in the wind, causing Ben’s smile to grow. Behind him, Finn cheered Rey on. She entered the city first, Ben close behind her. Hux had to settle for third. It looked like the Americans owed him their money after all.

*

Hamunaptra 1926 AD

Doctor Pryde was not one to get his hands dirty. He was a scholar, not a labourer, and had insisted that his employers hire some help for the expedition. They now had twelve diggers in their employ. They only spoke Arabic, though, so he was the only one who could tell them what to do. _Just as well_ , he thought, _these Americans have no idea what they are doing_. He barked out orders, holding his umbrella aloft to shield himself from the baking sun. It would be displeased if he came away from this little venture with a tan.

“Are we missin’ somethin’?” Mitaka asked, looking over to where their rivals had set themselves up. Pryde glanced over, watching them as they took directions from the young woman that was travelling with them. He scoffed.

“They’re led by a woman,” he sneered, “what could a woman possibly know?” Something hard hit his back, causing him to yelp in pain.

“This woman knows that you’re a dick, and she won’t hesitate to shoot you if you keep running your mouth like that, _Doctor_.” Phasma sneered. Pryde scowled at her but didn’t reply. He didn’t want his voice to convey any of the fear he actually felt when he looked at the woman. She was so tall and muscular that he was sure one punch from her would end his life. Not that he’d ever admit that. He turned back to the temple they had chosen as the first place they were going to explore. This would make them all very rich indeed.

*

Rey had never been so excited in all her life. Nothing, not even the feeling she had when she first stepped foot in Cairo, compared to this. She felt so alive, her entire being thrumming with energy. The Americans had set their diggers to work already, having the poor men haul rocks and heavy equipment back and forth under the baking sun while they sat together to have lunch. Rey rolled her eyes and set to work herself. Solo was trying a rope to the base of an old stone pillar, and she’d found two large, round mirrors in the sand that she and Finn were busy polishing it until they reflected the sun. Solo secured his knot, then sent the rope down into the opening they’d found in the ground. Hopefully, it would lead them to the series of underground chambers she’d read about.

“This is the statue of Anubis,” Rey wanted to make sure Finn and Solo knew what they were looking at. “According to Bembridge Scholars, we can find the golden book of Amun-Ra - the Book of the Living - in a secret compartment at it’s base.”

“What’re these old mirrors for?” Solo had joined her, and he seemed nervous for some reason, stumbling over his words in the most endearing manner. She smiled up at him, her eyes squinting slightly in the sun. His white shirt seemed impossibly whiter now than it had been during their days in the Sahara, and he’d long since abandoned his leather jacket. He still kept his guns by his side in their leather holsters, though. He really must think they were in some kind of danger.

“ _Ancient_ mirrors,” she teased. “It’s an Ancient Egyptian trick. You’ll see.” She looked back down at her mirror.

“Uh, here. This is for you.” She looked back up to see Solo holding a folded leather pouch out to her. She reached out and took it, gasping when she saw the contents. It was lined with all the tools she’d need to properly excavate the site.  
“Solo…” She breathed, running her fingers over one of the chisels.

“It’s just something I, uh, borrowed from our American friends. I thought it was something you might like - uh - might _need_ so you could, um -” He mimed using one of the brushes then turned away. Rey was taken aback. Nobody had ever done something so thoughtful for her in her entire life. She smiled down at the pouch and let out a small giggle. This was going to be the best time of her life. She began setting the mirrors up next to the opening they’d found.

Five minutes later, the four of them were lowering themselves into the crevice. Solo went first - insisting he wanted to make sure it was safe - and Rey followed immediately after. It was dark, barely illuminated by the reflected sunlight from up above. Still, it took Rey’s breath away.

“We are standing in a room that nobody has entered for over _three thousand years!_ ” She tried to keep herself calm, but she was too excited about this. She heard the soft plop of feet hitting sand.

“Whew!” Finn waved a hand in front of his nose. “Certainly smells like it. What a God-awful stench!” His nose twitched as he tried to locate the smell. Plutt slid down next to him. Finn sniffed, then his eyes widened as realisation dawned on him. It was not the chamber that smelled like death. 

Rey dashed over to the mirror beneath the crevice and brushed away the cobwebs and dust that had gathered on its surface. As she tilted it upwards to face the light, she prayed her trick would work, or she was going to look like an idiot. The mirror caught the light and sent it reflecting off all the other mirrors in the room. It lit up as if they were still under the baking sun above the ground.

“That is a cool trick.” Solo muttered. Then it dawned on Rey.

“Oh my… we’re in a preparation room!” Solo must have looked confused, because Finn spoke up.

“This is where they made the mummies.” He explained. Solo pulled two torches off the wall and lit them. He passed one to Finn. The group made their way down the hallway on the other side of the room, Solo constantly alert for any signs of trouble. Personally, Rey thought it was ridiculous - the only other people about were the Americans - bus she knew there was no point in trying to talk him out of it, even if it was setting her on edge. A high pitched chittering noise passed over their heads that sent cold shivers down Rey’s spine. They all looked up. At some point, Solo had got one of his guns out. The noise disappeared as quickly as it came.

“Bugs,” Solo offered her as an explanation. Rey looked over her shoulder at the others and repeated him. Finn grimaced and the warden glanced around furtively.

“Bugs?” He whispered-yelled. “I hate bugs!” Rey barely managed to stop herself from laughing at him.

They were all on edge as Solo led them through the narrow passages. Rey stuck close to him, she was the only one without a torch and he was the only one who could actually use the guns he had on him. At least that’s what she told herself. He took them through several different hallways, heading in the general direction of where the statue of Anubis had been in relation to their site. And then they found it.

The passage opened up into a large room. There was a large stone structure in the middle that seemed to have fallen out of the ceiling. The base of the statue, Rey realised. It was covered in hieroglyphics she couldn’t wait to translate.

“The secret compartment should be somewhere around here…” She muttered, glancing around. A deep, echoing noise filled the chamber, causing them all to jump. Solo pushed his torch into Rey’s hand and pulled out both his guns. Even Finn pulled out his tiny derringer. The noise got louder. Solo made them all take cover behind the stone base. He cocked his guns and took a deep breath. They stepped out from behind the base.

Only to find themselves face to face with the barrels of several guns. Rey glanced up and let out a sigh of relief. It was just the Americans. Both sides let out tense chuckles.

“You scared the shit outta us there, Solo.” Johnson muttered as he lowered his arms.

“Yeah, so did you.” Solo replied, his jaw set. Slowly, his arms went back to his side.

“Hey!” Mitaka exclaimed. “That’s my tool kit!” Rey realised he was looking at the pouch she carried. She tucked it against her chest possessively. Mitaka took a step forward to take it from her and was met with Solo’s guns. The rest of them men raised their firearms once more. “Maybe not…” He shuffled back a step. The guns were lowered again.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Rey smiled at them as politely as she could, “so, good day, gentlemen.”

“Get out of here!” Their Egyptologist practically spat at her. Rey saw the disgusted look Phasma gave him and wondered if this was how he treated everyone or just how he treated women. “This is where we’re digging.”

“We were here first.” Rey scowled at him. The men pointed their guns at each other again. Phasma and Rey exchanged fed up looks.

“This is our statue,” Johnson drawled, puffing his chest out to make himself bigger. It didn’t matter, they all dwarfed in comparison to Solo, anyway.

“No, it’s ours.” Solo’s voice was low and threatening. Rey looked down. There was a small gap in the ground next to her feet. She used her foot to push sand and stones into it but didn’t hear them land. There was another chamber below them. She thought about it for a minute while the men continued threatening each other. If they found the chamber, they could dig up and steal the compartment out from underneath the Americans. She sighed to herself and stepped between the guns.

“Now, gentlemen. We’ve got to learn to share this space if we’re going to be digging together.” Rey placed a hand on Solo’s arm. “There are other places to excavate.” She hoped her eyes managed to convey that she’d found something. Solo exhaled through his nose and lowered his guns. At least he seemed to trust her.

*  
“If my translation is correct, we should end up right between his legs.” Rey called over Solo and Finn’s hammering. “Oh, I just heard how that sounds.” She giggled uncontrollably for a moment. The men paused what they were doing to give her disappointed looks.

“So, when those damn Yanks go to sleep - no offence Solo --” Finn said as he swung his sledgehammer at the roof.

“None taken -”

“-- we can dig our way up and steal the book before they get to it.” The men gave the roof a few more good whacks. Rey chipped smaller bits away with her chisel.

“Are you sure we’ll be able to find it?” Solo looked down at Rey as he hacked away. 

“Absolutely,” she replied, “as long as those ghastly Americans don’t get there first. No offence.”

“None taken.”

“Where did Plutt run off to? Not that I’m mourning the loss of his stench.” Finn drew attention to their missing companion. Rey felt the tiniest bit guilty she hadn’t noticed him leave, but not so much that she’d lose sleep over it. Solo shrugged and went back to picking away at the roof.

*  
Plutt was too big for these tunnels, it turned out. He had to crawl through them, which was not easy when carrying an open flame. The tunnels went on forever, seemingly with no end in sight. The others probably hadn’t noticed he’d gone, but what choice did he have? He’d come for treasure - for gold, silver and jewels - not to be taught history by a frigid English girl. He took a left turn, and the tunnel opened up into a small chamber. He stood, his eyes glued to an engraving of a man in one of the stone walls. It was lined with small, round depressions, some of which held shiny black amethyst scarabs. There were several missing, most likely having fallen out at some point. He pushed his torch into the sand until it stayed upright.

“Blue gold…” he muttered to himself as he plucked them from the wall. They would fetch him a large amount in the markets of Cairo. He stuffed them into his bag, but didn’t notice when he dropped one next to his foot.

*

At the same time, in another chamber, the Americans were trying to open the secret compartment they had found in the base of the statue. Phasma and Johnson began to prize it open with their tools, but Pryde stopped them.

“Seti the First was not a fool - he will have set traps to protect something as precious as this. We should have the diggers do it.”

“Alright…” Phasma muttered, unsure. Still, she lowered her crowbar. Johnson looked at the Egyptologist skeptically but lowered his too. Pryde barked out orders to the diggers in Arabic. Phasma didn’t speak a word of the language, but she was sure it didn’t need to be spoken in the tone Pryde constantly took with the workers. 

Three of them set to work, slowly but surely opening the compartment. Pryde yelled at them - Phasma assumed it meant something like _‘faster!’_ but she couldn’t be sure. The other diggers stayed as far away from it as possible, afraid of something. Phasma just couldn’t figure out what, but it was enough to make her take several steps back as well.

She was glad she did. As soon as the seams opened wide enough, a terrifying jet of burning hot liquid spewed out, hitting the unfortunate diggers square in the face. They turned and fell to the ground, their exposed skin melting clean off their bodies. 

*

Ben regretted asking how mummies were prepared. They’d taken a break from their digging, and he’d desperately wanted to see Rey’s face light up again, the way it did when she talked about Ancient Egypt. They’d covered all the major organs except -

“Oh, the brain!” Rey exclaimed. “It’s fascinating how they did that.”

“How?” Ben _really_ didn’t want to know, but her smile was so big he couldn’t resist.

“The stuck a small, red-hot poker up your nose, scrambled things about a bit, then ripped it all out through the nostrils.” Ben felt sick. Finn grumbled about how disgusting it was while he used one of their hammers to play a crude version of golf with some stones.

“Ouch.” Ben muttered. How she seemed so cheery while discussing death he didn’t know.

“It’s mummification, silly, you’d be dead when they did this.” Ben turned to Finn.

“If I don’t make it out of here, don’t let her put me down for mummification.” Rey laughed and hit his arm playfully.

“Likewise,” Finn agreed, taking a swing at a rather large stone. It soared up and hit the roof, causing the section they’d been hammering at to collapse, almost crushing Rey and Ben. There was a stone casement sticking out from amongst the rubble.

“It’s a sarcophagus…” Rey breathed, stepping closer to inspect it. She looked up. “Buried at the base of Anubis…”

“Why would they bury someone in the ceiling?” Finn asked. Rey rolled her eyes.

“Because they didn’t. They buried him under the statue, so he was either someone incredibly important, or he committed a great crime.” Rey looked up at Ben. She seemed concerned, which did not bode well for their little adventure. He knew something, some kind of evil, was lurking here. Now he couldn’t help feeling like they’d just found it.

*

The loose scarab hit the ground too quietly for Plutt to notice. He continued plucking the beetles out of the wall and stuffing them greedily into the leather satchel at his side. It twitched, something inside was straining to get free, and the casing cracked. A live scarab beetle crawled out of the shell. It skittered over to the warden’s shoe and easily burrowed its way inside.

Then Plutt noticed, because it also chewed its way into his skin. He screamed in pain and terror as it made its way up the inside of his leg and into his abdomen. He ripped his shirt open, revealing a horrible, writhing lump tearing its way up towards his head. Plutt tried to claw at it - to do anything to make it disappear- but it didn’t stop. The warden began to choke when it got to his neck, but it kept going. The lump travelled up the side of his neck and he cried out for help.

*

Rey used her ‘borrowed’ tools to gently dust away the sand and dirt that lay on top of the sarcophagus. Solo was apparently impatient to find out who was inside it, because he stepped in and began to brush it away with his hands.

“Who is it?” Finn asked. He was in an awful rush for a man who was apparently only here for the gold. Rey squinted to read the inscription.

“ _'He Who Shall Not Be Named.'_ ” She translated, her eyes widening in alarm. Solo sucked in a breath and blew away some sand, revealing a pointed, star-like shape embedded into the stone with a scarab carved into the middle. The three of them stared at it for a moment.

“This looks like a lock…” Solo trailed off in thought.

“This fellow was certainly not well-liked.” Finn muttered, taking a half step away from the sarcophagus.

“If it’s locked it’ll take us forever to get in without a key.”

“A key!” Rey breathed. “That’s what the man in my room was looking for!” She ran over to Finn’s bag and raked through it until she found what she was looking for. The puzzle box. She pressed the edges and it opened into the same star-like fashion as the lock.

“That’s mine!” Finn groaned. Rey rolled her eyes at him and placed the box into the lock. They fit perfectly. Solo grinned down at her. Finally, a man who wasn’t scared of her brain.

The moment was cut short by a horrific scream. Solo was immediately alert, guns drawn as he ran towards the sound. Rey and Finn scrambled after him. Plutt was running down the passage towards him, his head clutched in his hands as he shrieked in pain. Solo reached out to stop him so they could help, but the man slipped through his grasp and continued full speed to the end of the tunnel, where he crashed into the stone wall head first.

He lay, motionless, in the sand. The three of them looked at him in horror for a moment, before rushing over to his side. Rey couldn’t find a pulse, but he had no injuries. Surely he couldn’t have died from just running into the wall?

*

They discussed Plutt as they sat around their fire that night. Rey couldn’t figure out for the life of her what had killed him, but Finn was certain that it was because of how little he cared for what he put into his body. Solo came and sat down next to Rey, informing them of what happened to the American’s workers.

“Their faces melted off? _How?_ ” Rey whispered incredulously.

“Pressurised salt acid, some kind of old boobytrap.”

“Maybe there really is a curse,” Finn muttered, throwing another stick onto the fire. A gust of wind made the flames flicker. Finn and Solo made eye contact over Rey.

“Jesus Christ you two, you’re like a couple of old wives!” She rolled her eyes.

“You don’t believe in curses?” Solo asked as he stoked the fire. Rey shook her head.

“I believe in what I can see and touch, not in fairytales and superstition.”

“Well, I think we should be prepared.” He cocked his elephant gun. Finn raised an eyebrow at them.

“Let’s see what Plutt believed in.” He picked up the man’s satchel and rooted through it. His fingers caught on something sharp, causing him to yelp and pull his hand out of the bag. Rey shrieked and fell back towards Solo.

“What is it?” Her voice trembled. Finn grinned and produced a glass bottle, the neck of which was partially shattered.

“It’s a nineteen fourteen Glenlivet! The man had good taste in whisky.” He removed the cork and took a swig, grinning like a child with sweeties. In the American camp, there was a rumbling. Solo tensed. Rey swore she heard a horse neighing, and a man shouting. It was nighttime, so there couldn’t possibly be any more explorers. Gunfire. Solo pressed his elephant gun into Rey’s hands and ran off, ordering her to wait there. She scowled and hurried after him.

There were about thirty people on horses, dressed head to toe in black robes. They thundered into the camp with a war cry and started shooting at anyone they saw. They threw torches onto their tents and caused all non-armed explorers to scatter. The Americans were having a great time shooting at things, but their Egyptologist was scared shitless, cowering behind them like a child. 

Rey took cover behind some rocks, intending to keep a safe distance from all the fighting. She watched Solo take down rider after rider with his deadly aim, and was oddly impressed by it. There was a thudding noise behind her, and she spun around to find a man coming towards her, a scimitar raised above his head. Rey shrieked and scrambled away, but tripped and fell backwards over rock. The fall caused her set off the rife, and her attacker was sent flying back into some ruins. She landed with a thud on the other side of the rocks.

*

One of the men pursued Finn, who ran away with his bottle of whisky. Ben found a ledge and jumped onto the man, knocking him off his horse. The man’s gun slid away from him, so he drew his sword. Ben shot it and sent it flying, then shot at another person who had come up behind him. This split second of distraction was all that was needed, because the man drew a second sword and used it to disarm Ben. The man swiped at him, causing him to jump back. Solo produced a stick of dynamite and lit it in one of the many fires that raged throughout the camps.

This made the man call off his people.

“We will shed no more blood tonight, but if you aren’t gone by this time tomorrow, you will die.” He mounted his horse and they left. Ben removed the dynamite’s fuse. He turned and saw Rey struggling to sit up in the sand, so he ran over and pulled her up, holding her close to him as he checked her for injuries. A huge wave of relief washed over him. She was fine. He stroked her face gently and she smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling in the fire’s glow.

It was the first time he’d shown genuine concern for her, and she loved it. He was holding her a little closer than was considered proper, but she didn’t care, all she knew was that the intense look in his deep brown eyes was sending her pulse racing. She never wanted the moment to end.

“This proves there’s treasure under this sand!” Mitaka cried, nodding his head slightly. “They wouldn’t be so protective of this place otherwise.” Ben tucked Rey into his side and turned to face the Americans, still keeping his arms around her.

“No, they’re desert people, so they value water, not gold or jewels.” Johnson took a step closer to Solo.

“How’s about we join forces, just for tonight? For, y’know, safety in numbers an’ all that.” Rey and Ben gave him matching disapproving looks.

*

Finn had passed out about half an hour ago, having drank about half of Plutt’s whisky. And, about twenty five minutes ago, Rey and Ben had started drinking it themselves. Now, Ben was trying to teach her how to throw a punch. He sorted her stance and made sure her thumb wasn’t tucked into her fingers. 

“Okay,” he held his hands up for her to use as targets, “go.” She giggled drunkenly and used the full weight of her body to throw the punch, but didn’t support herself so she just toppled into his arms. He lowered her into a seated position in the sand and sunk down next to her, offering her another swig of whisky. She pouted and pushed his arm away.

“Unlike my best friend, Mister Solo, I know when I’ve had enough.” She slurred, getting a deep chuckle out of him.

“And unlike your friend, I don’t get you.” Rey pushed herself up onto her knees, swaying unsteadily.

“I know, I know! You’re wondering what a place like me is doing in a girl like this.” She grinned down at him as he tried to swallow the laugh that was bubbling up in his throat.

“Yeah, something like that.” He smiled and took another drag from the whisky bottle. Rey shuffled over to him and pulled a locket out from under the neckline of her dress. Inside it was a picture of a family - a tall, strong looking man with a thick, neatly groomed moustache, a slender woman with features so striking there was no questioning where Rey had gotten hers, and a little girl who was unmistakably Rey.

“Egypt is in my blood. You see, my father was a famous explorer, and he fell in love with Egypt. Then he met my mother, who was an Egyptian and quite an adventurer herself, and he fell in love with her too!” Ben nodded.

“Okay, I get your father, and I get your mother… I even get Finn. But I still don’t get you. What are you doing here?” Rey scoffed at him, her features twisted into a scowl as she staggered to her feet.

“I might not be an adventurer, or an explorer, or a treasure seeker, or-or a gunfighter, Mister Solo, but I am proud of what I am!” She was so unsteady on her feet Ben was afraid she’d collapse.

“And what is that?” 

“I… am a librarian!” She plopped down onto her knees, grinning at him drunkenly. “And I’m going to kiss you now, Mister Solo.” She leaned closer to him, looking him straight in the eyes. Ben’s throat went dry.

“Ben,” he mumbled, “if-if you’re gonna do that you should call me Ben.” Her smile grew wider.

“Ben…” she repeated in a breathy whisper that sent a shiver down his spine. She leaned in further and closed her eyes. Ben’s eyes slid closed in anticipation, but nothing happened. After a beat, he felt her head press into his shoulder. He opened his eyes.  
She’d passed out. He chuckled and scooped her up into his arms, taking her to her bed. Hopefully, she’d still want to kiss him tomorrow.

*

Rey’s hangover was killer the next day, but she was still up bright and early before either of her companions. As soon as she woke them up, she rushed them down to their sarcophagus. Once unlocked, it opened with a thunk. Ben prized it the rest of the way with a crowbar. Rey had to put a lot of effort into not admiring his arms during this.

The lid crashed to the floor with a loud bang. The three of them groaned and clutched their heads.

*

The diggers had been reluctant to go back to work the next day, but after some _‘persuasion’_ from Johnson, they went back to the chamber they’d left the compartment in. Now it had been opened, there was nothing to fear from it. Phasma and Johnson kept their guns pointed at the workers as they unloaded an ornate chest from inside the compartment. Johnson’s arm was in a sling - injuries from the previous night - and had insisted that they’d try to run away. The top of the chest was covered in hieratic writings, which Pryde translated for them.

“There is a curse upon this chest.” The Americans scoffed. Pryde scowled at them. “These are hallowed grounds, so that which was set forth in ancient times is as strong today as it was then.”

“Yeah, yeah, just translate so we can get to treasure huntin’.” Johnson grumbled. Pryde rolled his eyes.

“It says: _‘Death will come on swift wings to whomsoever opens this chest’_.” A gust of wind blew through the chamber, making all the torches flicker. The workers scattered, their cries of terror echoing through the passages. “ _‘There is one, the undead, who if brought back to life, is bound by sacred law to consummate this curse.’_ ”

“Well then, let’s just make sure we don’t bring nobody back from the dead.” Mitaka interjected. The three Americans laughed.

“ _‘He will kill all who open this chest, and assimilate their organs and fluids. And in so doing he will regenerate. And no longer be the undead, but a plague upon this earth.’_ ” Pryde finished the inscription. Wind once again howled through the chamber. He exchanged a fearful look with Hux. The Americans scoffed once more.

“To hell with this, let’s just open the damn thing!” Phasma was not in the mood for Pryde and Hux’s superstitions.

*

Ben and Finn hauled the wooden coffin out of the sarcophagus, propping it upright against a wall. Rey felt a surge of excitement through her. She was about to discover her very first mummy!

“I’ve dreamed about this since I was a little girl!” She grinned at her friends. Ben smiled down at her.

“You dreamed of dead guys?” Rey raised an eyebrow at him before wiping the cobwebs, sand and dust off the surface of the coffin. Then she froze.

“Oh my god…” she whispered. “The sacred spells have been chiseled off. This man was condemned in both this life and the next.” Ben and Finn grinned at each other, too excited to understand the gravity of the situation.

“That’s rough.” Ben couldn’t even pretend to mean it.

“Yes, it’s quite sad and all that. Now let’s find out who’s inside!” Finn agreed. Rey couldn’t believe she was here with two insensitive buffoons. Finn pulled the box out of his pocket and slotted it into the keyhole. Once turned, it unlocked with a hiss. The scent of death and decay filled their nostrils, making them all gag. Ben got his fingers into the slight gap that had now appeared at the seams and heaved, straining to open the coffin. Finn passed Rey his torch and went to help him. The lid came free suddenly, sending the two men stumbling backwards.

Inside was a hideous, twisted, rotting corpse. It jumped forward slightly, scaring the shit out of all three of them, then slumped back.

*

Phasma and Mitaka began prizing the lid from the chest. Johnson watched on, greed glinting in his rodent-like eyes. Pryde and Hux were each internally weighing the chances of the curse being real. Wind coursed through the chamber with a groan. This was enough for Hux, who began to stumble backwards away from the chest.

“It’s the curse!” He cried as he fled from the room, kicking clouds of sand up in his wake. Johnson scoffed and spit into the spot Hux had been standing in.

“Superstitious bastard,” he muttered. The lid popped free and slid to the ground. Inside, wrapped in a thin muslin cloth, was a black book. “Where’s the treasure?”

“Gentlemen, this is treasure. It is the Book of the Dead - I’ve heard of it before but I never thought it actually existed.”

“Man, I thought you said it was s’posed to be golden.” Mitaka whined, giving the chest a good thump with his boot. One of the sides of the chest opened, revealing five delicate canopic jars, only one of them was broken.

“There you go you buffoons, some treasure.” They took a jar each, leaving one for Pryde.

*

There was something not quite right about the mummy. Rey stared and stared at it until she couldn’t anymore. It wasn’t how she imagined, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“In all my life, I’ve never seen a mummy look like this. He’s still…” She couldn’t think of the right word for what she was looking at. Ben and Finn looked at each other.

“Juicy.” They supplied.

“Yes, juicy.” Rey grimaced. “He must be over three thousand years old, and yet he looks like he’s still decomposing.”

“Rey,” Ben got her attention and pointed to the lid of the coffin. The inside was covered in scratch marks unmistakably made by human nails. Rey crouched down to have a better look. There was dried blood caked in the grooves.

“Oh my god… he was buried alive,” she breathed. Then she noticed some deeper scratches. “Look here, he carved a message with his nails. It says: _‘Death is only the beginning’_.” Behind her, Finn shivered. Ben looked around.

“Where’d I put my gun?”

“Do you plan on shooting him?” Finn asked incredulously.

“If he moves, he’s getting shot!”

*

Rey felt restless by the time the sun went down. Something didn’t sit right with her about their mummy, but whatever it was wasn’t helped by Finn and Ben’s constant speculation about a curse. Ancient Egyptians believed in curses she knew, but there was no proof they actually worked. She was an academic, for God’s sake, even the idea of believing in curses was ridiculous to her. 

To escape the topic, she’d taken a walk around their camp, but it did nothing to relieve her restlessness. She kept her head high when she walked past the Americans’ tents. She knew what they’d been saying about their find. Then she noticed the Egyptologist trying to pry open a black book. She gasped when she realised which book it was. _How_ had they found the Book of the Dead? Then she noticed the star shaped indentation on the cover.

“You need a key to open that book.” She couldn’t keep the smugness out of her tone. Pryde scowled at her and clutched the book closer to him. Rey smiled at him and walked over to the fire that the rest of the men were sitting around. Ben shoved Hux out of the seat next to him so she could have it. Rey tried to not be too happy about that. 

“Look what I found,” she opened her hands, revealing her collection of bug skeletons. “Scarab skeletons!”

“Rey!” Finn groaned, frowning at the bugs. She rolled her eyes.

“They were flesh eaters. I found them in our friend’s coffin; they can stay alive for years feasting on a corpse’s flesh.” All the men looked repulsed. _What a bunch of babies_ , she thought. She couldn’t help but feel a little relieved when Phasma came and sat with them.

“So you’re saying that someone dumped a bunch of these on our guy and they slowly ate him alive?” Ben asked. She smiled and bumped his shoulder with hers.

“ _Very slowly._ ”

“Well, he certainly wasn’t a popular fellow when they buried him.” Finn plucked a skeleton out of her hands and examined it for a moment.

“Probably got a bit too handsy with the pharaoh’s daughter or something.” Ben mused. Rey smiled up at him and gently placed the rest of the skeletons on the ground by her feet.

“Well, according to my readings, I think our friend suffered the Hom-Dai - the worst of all the Ancient Egyptian curses. It was only to be performed on the most evil of blasphemers, but in all my research I’d found no indication of it ever having been done.”

“Why not?”

“They feared it - it was said that if a victim of the Hom-Dai should ever return, they would bring with them the ten plagues of Egypt.” Everyone looked at her with fearful eyes. She really was the only sane one on this trip.

*

Rey couldn’t help herself. The book was just sitting there, calling to her from the Egyptologist’s lap as he slept. She tiptoed over to him, carefully avoiding the books he had piled around him. Slowly, she reached out and slipped it out from under his arm. All she wanted to do was read a bit of it. She’d put it back before he woke up, and nobody would know. She went back to their fire.

“That’s called stealing, y’know.” Ben rolled over on his blanket and looked at her. She thought he’d been asleep. She stuck her hand into Finn’s bag and pulled the key out.

“Actually, according to you and Finn, it’s called borrowing.” The book unlocked with a dull click. Ben sat up.

“You sure you should be messing around with that thing?”

“It’s a book, Ben, and no harm ever came from reading a book.” She carefully flipped the book open. Each page was pure obsidian, with hieratic carved into its surface. Rey began to read the book aloud to Ben, alternating between reading in its original dialect and translating it into English for him. The fire flickered. A high pitched whine filled the air.

“No!” Pryde had bolted upright. “You mustn’t read from the book!” Rey’s stomach dropped. She couldn’t deny that she’d done something now. Next to her, Finn sat up and looked around groggily. The Americans ran out of their tents. In the distance, a swirling black mass was swarming towards the camp. Rey gasped. Locusts. 

She felt one of Ben’s large hands envelope her wrist as he dragged her towards the temple. Locusts flew into her hair, and she screeched when she could feel them crawling on her head. They all skidded into the temple. The Americans pushed the door shut, but everyone kept running deeper through the passages, slapping and shaking locusts out of their hair.

*  
The Americans and Hux ran through passageway after passageway, not stopping despite having shut the door. Their British rivals had long since disappeared into the labyrinth that was the temple. They pushed and fell against each other, none of them wanting to be the last man in their group in case they were swarmed again. One of them - it was impossible to tell who - was knocked hard into Mitaka, sending him sprawling onto the sandy floor. His glasses fell from his face, and suddenly he couldn’t see.

“Guys! My glasses!” He cried to his friends. Surely they would turn back to help him. He reached out to feel for them, then he heard footsteps. Help, finally. Then a crunch. His glasses. Nobody stopped to help him. He stood, squinting at three blurry shapes disappearing around the corner. So much for having each other’s backs. “Phasma! Johnson!” No response. He reached out with shaking hands until he felt the stone wall of the temple beneath his fingers.

Following the wall, he tried to find his friends - if he could even call them that now. A blurry figure stepped out at the end of the passage. Mitaka squinted.

“Phasma?” Mitaka staggered forwards. The blur remained silent and still. “Johnson?” He stumbled forward and fell straight into the figure. He reached out to brace himself against their chest, but his hand went straight through and lodged against something warm and putrid, causing him to jump and pull away. His hand was covered in rotten, molten flesh. A skeletal hand covered his mouth before he could scream.

*  
Rey, Ben and Finn hauled ass through the tunnels. They’d managed to lose the locusts, and the Americans, but they had a new problem. Hundreds of scarab beetles had unearthed themselves, and now scuttled close behind them, desperate for flesh. They reached a narrow staircase, but couldn’t afford to slow their escape, so they hurtled down the stone steps. Ahead of her, Ben leaped onto a pedestal that sat a few feet off from the staircase. Finn jumped up next to him. There was no room for her.

To her left was a small recess in the wall, with a big enough gap between it and the stairs that the ghastly bugs couldn't get her. She jumped and landed hard against the wall, but she didn’t register the pain. A bruised shoulder was better than being eaten alive by scarabs. Rey’s stomach rolled as the trio watched the beetles swarm the staircase between them. She’d never cared much for bugs before, but this experience made her truly loathe them. 

With a sigh, Rey leaned back, deciding to take a moment to catch her breath. The wall gave way behind her, sending her tumbling into the dark. Thankfully, she landed in a soft pile of sand. She blinked once, twice, but wherever she had landed was so dark that she could barely see a thing. Standing, she shook the sand from her hair. She was just going to have to navigate blind.

The wall was cold beneath her fingertips as she carefully felt her way around. She followed it in a straight line for a few minutes, then it veered right. Moonlight filtered through a crack in the roof when she rounded the corner, a relief despite the slight pain it caused her eyes for a few moments. Once they adjusted, she noticed a man standing where the passage opened up into the Scarab Chamber. She sighed in relief and began walking towards him.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you, Mister Mitaka. We were just chased by scarabs and I must have leaned against a trick wall, because I fell through…” her voice trailed off when she came to a stop and the man turned to face her.  
His eyes were missing. 

Rey screamed and stumbled back, only to crash into something solid that was definitely not a wall. She turned slowly, her breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. It was him. Their mummy. He was alive. And he had eyeballs in his once-empty sockets. Rey screamed again and backed away from him, this time hitting a wall. The monster followed, squinting as he looked at her.

“Anck-Su-Namun?”

*

“There’s gotta be a trap door or something…” Ben grumbled as he and Finn inspected where they’d last seen Rey. He pushed against the wall to no avail. The sound of screams pierced the air, and the pair looked up to see Johnson, Phasma and one of their diggers sprinting down the stairs.

“Run, you sons-of-bitches!” Johnson yelled as he hurtled past them. Ben and Finn joined them when they heard the unmistakable chittering of scarab beetles. The digger behind them tripped and fell. Ben turned to go back for him, but it was too late. The beetles swarmed over him, eating straight through his clothes and flesh and leaving behind only his skeleton. Finn, Phasma and Johnson watched in horror, but Ben turned and kept running, racing right past them without a backwards glance. The three of them turned and followed.

*  
The sand seemed to dance around the mummy as he shifted, dancing around his skeletal legs. Rey’s legs wobbled as she pressed harder into the wall in an attempt to distance herself from the monster. Where could a girl get a trap door when she needed one? She looked over the mummy’s shoulder at Mitaka.

“Help… help me, please… please, Mitaka…” She begged, her voice trembling in fear. Mitaka opened his mouth, but he could only manage a gurgling moan in response. His tongue was missing. The monster reached out and grabbed Mitaka, then threw him as if he weighed nothing at all. Rey cried out in terror. The mummy turned back to face her, and that’s when she noticed it. The tongue. He’d taken Mitaka’s tongue as well as his eyes. It reached out to her.

“Keetah mi pharos, Anck-Su-Namun.” _‘Come with me my princess, Anck-Su-Namun’_ , Rey translated internally. A horrified shiver travelled down her spine.

Suddenly, Ben was by her side, breathing hard.

“What the hell are you playing at, Rey? Quit standin’ around and let’s get the hell outta here!” He then registered the fear in her eyes and turned, jumping out of his skin when he saw the creature. How he’d missed it, she did,’t know. “Whoa!” He reached down and took her hand, though the gesture couldn’t get rid of her fear, it did make her feel safer. That feeling went away when his hand retreated when he reached for his guns. The monster unhinged its jaw and let out a guttural, blood-curdling shriek. Rey whimpered and turned towards Ben, who was determinedly not showing how afraid he really was, but she could see it in his eyes. 

Ben raised his guns and roared back at the mummy before firing at it, sending it flying back with a shattered rib cage. Ben grabbed Rey’s hand and ran.

*

They hauled themselves out of the crevice they’d climbed down on their first day in Hamunaptra. If there was ever a time to cut losses, this was it. When they surfaced, they came face to face with the people who had attacked them a couple of nights ago. Pryde was already with them. Their leader stepped forward once they had all surfaced. Ben stood closer to Rey protectively.

“I told you to leave or die,” the man spoke, his voice deep and authoritative, “you refused. Now you have unleashed a creature that we have feared for thousands of years, and he will kill us all.” Ben scoffed.

“Don’t worry about it, I got him.” The man’s jaw clenched.

“No mortal weapons can kill such a creature! He is not of this world.”

*

Hux stumbled through passage after passage. The temple was beginning to feel more like a labyrinth to him now. He’d reached the base of the Anubis now, so he was almost clear of the place. He drew his gun and backed around the statue, turning once he was sure he wasn’t being followed. His shriek echoed throughout the chamber when he came face to face with the mummy. Hux staggered backwards and fired rapidly at the creature, to no avail. The bullets simply passed through it. The monster advanced on him. Hux dropped his gun and pulled a small crucifix on a chain out from under his shirt as he quickly made the sign of the Cross to bless himself. Surely even a monster such as this answered to a higher power.

“May the good Lord protect and watch over me, as a shepherd watches over his flock.” The mummy wasn’t affected. Hux gulped and reached under his shirt once more, pulling out chains with a multitude of different religious symbols dangling from them. He held up the Islamic Crescent Moon and Star and blessed himself in Arabic. No effect. He produced a Brahma medallion and muttered a Hindu blessing. Still nothing. A small Bodhisattva statue and a Chinese blessing. Nope. The monster reached for his throat. This was his last chance.

The Star of David and Jewish blessing. The creature stopped in its tracks and regarded Hux for a moment. It muttered to itself in Ancient Egyptian before addressing him in Hebrew.

“I may have use for you. The rewards shall be great.” It held out its hand, revealing a collection of shiny gold objects. Hux nodded slowly. In the monster’s other hand was a broken canopic jar. “Where are the other sacred jars?”

*

“Who are you people?” Rey demanded, her hands firmly on her hips. Ben took a second to admire her courage before focusing back on their current problem.

“I am Poe Dameron, and we are the Medjai. Our forefathers all pledged to protect the world from the evil in this city, and thanks to you we have failed.” Whatever Rey’s response had been was cut off when one of the Medjai, a small, dark haired woman, dragged a man forwards. Ben gasped when he realised it was Mitaka. Or what was left of Mitaka.

“What have you done to him you bastards?” Johnson cried as he and Phasma moved to get their friend. The woman scowled at him.

“Us? We saved him before that monster could finish cutting parts off of him!” She looked ready to punch Johnson. Ben kind of wanted to see it happen. Poe held up a hand, signalling her to back off.

“That’s enough, Rose.” He turned to Ben and Rey. “You must leave tonight, before he kills you all.”

“What will you do?” Rey asked. Poe cocked his gun and gave her a devilish smirk. Ben wouldn’t have minded so much if it hadn’t made Rey blush.

“We’re going to hunt this creature, and find a way to kill him before he kills us all.” Rey’s eyes widened.

“I told you, I got him.” Ben grumbled. Poe looked away from Rey, his eyes settling onto Ben with a hard glare.

“The creature you and your friends have unleashed must consummate the curse he is bound to. Until he does, he will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop until he has got each and every one of you.” Poe turned away and walked towards the temple, the rest of his troops following him. Rey looked up at Ben.

“I think it’s time to head back to Cairo.” He said, glancing back at the others. They packed the essentials and left as soon as they could. Ben was thrilled to have put the city behind him once and for all.

They could hear the monster shriek as they rode out of Hamunaptra and into the desert.

*

Fort Brydon At Cairo 1926 AD

Rey scowled as Ben started stuffing her dresses into the trunk on the end of her bed. When he turned to pick up another pile of her things, she removed them and dumped them onto her bed. Clearly, having a proper bath and a bed to sleep in hadn’t done anything to improve his mood.

“I thought you didn’t believe in stuff like this.” Ben dropped more things into the trunk then headed to her closet. Rey grumbled and emptied it again.

“Well, having a face-to-face encounter with a resurrected thousand year old corpse does tend to change one's mind.” Ben unloaded a pile of jackets and shirts.

“Forget it, we’re out of here.”

“No, we most certainly are not.” Rey threw them onto the floor just as Ben dropped a fistfull of her underthings into the trunk.

“Yes, we are.” They kept on like this for quite some time; Ben packing and Rey unpacking.

“Ben, we woke him up. It’s our responsibility to stop him.” Ben stopped what he was doing to look at her incredulously.

“ _‘We’_? I told you not to mess around with that book and you did it anyway!” He dumped a pile of books into her trunk, which Rey promptly removed.

“Okay, _okay!_ Me, me, me, I, I, I - I woke him up and it’s my responsibility to stop him.”

“And how, exactly, do you plan on doing that? You heard that Poe guy, no mortal weapon can kill him.”

“Then we’ll just have to find some _immortal_ ones!”

“You said ‘we’ again. I am not part of this, I am outta here!” He gripped the edges of her trunk as he glared at her. Rey brought the lid down onto his fingers, making him yelp in pain and pull his fingers to his mouth.

“The book said that the stronger the creature gets, the more his curse will grow. He’ll destroy the whole world if he isn’t stopped!”

“That’s not my problem.”

“It is _everybody’s_ problem, Ben!”

“Rey, I appreciate you saving my life and everything, but when I agreed to help you, I said I’d get you to Hamunaptra and back. We are now back from Hamunaptra, so the job’s done and that’s the end of our contract.” Rey’s face fell into a slight frown.  
“Am I just a contract to you?” She hated how hurt she sounded. Ben just rolled his eyes.

“Look, lady, you can either come with me, or stay here. It doesn’t bother me.” Rey raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m staying.”

“Fine!” Ben growled and stomped away from her.

“Fine,” she echoed, following behind him. He whipped around to face her when he was on the other side of her bedroom doors. They were so close that, when Ben tilted his head down to look at her properly, their noses almost touched.

“Fine.”

“Fine!” Rey slammed the doors in his face. She turned back to face the carnage in her room and sighed. What on earth had she got herself into?

*

Ben sighed as he went to join Finn in the Fort’s casbah, his mind stuck on his argument with Rey. How someone so small and delicate looking could be so stubborn and hard headed, he didn’t know. Was it annoying? Yes. Was it hot? Also yes. Rey had gloriously perfected the art of getting under his skin, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. 

A familiar face stopped him in his tracks. 

“Dad?” This was an Air Force base, and he knew his father was stationed here, so he didn’t know what exactly was shocking about seeing him. Slowly, Han Solo turned to face him.

“Ben?” Han looked like he almost didn’t believe Ben was actually there, which was fair, since he hadn’t been in touch with his parents in two or three years now. Ben gave him a small smile, that turned into a genuine grin when Han pulled him in for a tight hug. “What on earth are you doin’ here, kid?”

“Just here with some friends,” he nodded over to where Finn, Phasma and Johnson sat. The trio held up their glasses of bourbon to tempt him over. Han gestured for him to start walking and followed after him. “How’s mom?”

“She’s her usual self - bossy.” They both chuckled. “She misses you. We both do.” They reached the bar.

“Who are you annoying now, Solo?” Finn grinned at Ben as he handed each of them a drink.

“Finn, this is Han Solo. Dad, this is Finn, Phasma and Johnson.” 

“Your _dad? _Oh this is wonderful, what was this delightfully grumpy bastard like as a child?” Finn’s shiteating grin made Ben want to hit him, but he refrained. He imagined Rey would like him even less if he did that. Thankfully, Han just huffed out a laugh and patted Ben’s shoulder. The group raised their glasses in cheers and tossed them back - only to spit them out immediately. Around them, the other patrons were spitting their drinks out too.__

__“Jesus! That tastes like…” Phasma couldn’t finish her sentence._ _

__“Blood,” Ben muttered, frowning at his glass. “It tastes like blood.” The group exchanged nervous glances. The water in the fountain in the middle of the room turned from clear to red._ _

__“ _‘And the rivers and waters of Egypt went red and were as blood.’_ ” Finn recited. Ben’s stomach dropped in realisation._ _

__“He’s here.”_ _

__“Who’s here?” Han grumbled, confused, curious and concerned all at once. Ben put a firm hand on his father’s shoulder._ _

__“Listen, dad, you’ve gotta go home. We have done something kind of bad - like end of the world kind of bad - so you’ve gotta get to Mom. I’ll come visit once this is all over, I promise.” Han’s brows furrowed, but he did as he was told. He pulled Ben into a tight hug and told him to look after himself, then left the casbah._ _

__He’d left Rey alone, he realised. Dread spiked in him, and he didn’t even look back at his companions before he ran out, determined to get to her before something happened. Lightning flashed in the sky as he ran, pushing soldiers out of his way in his panic._ _

__“Rey!”_ _

__*_ _

__Hux wasn’t used to feeling pity for people, but looking at Mitaka, it was hard not to. The man had a bandage wrapped around his head to cover his empty eye sockets, and now carried a handkerchief to catch the saliva that escaped his mouth when he attempted to speak. Mitaka had been left alone in his room, which worked out well for Hux._ _

__Across from Mitaka, Imhotep sat in an armchair. He’d covered himself head to toe in billowing black robes, and covered his face in a thick metal mask. Hux was glad of it. While he didn’t mind doing the dirty work, he hated looking at the rotting body he was working for._ _

__“This is Prince Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris.”_ _

__“I’m so pleased to meet you.” Mitaka gurgled, covering his mouth with the cloth in his hand. He reached out with the other, to shake Imhotep’s hand. Hux stopped him with a firm hand._ _

__“Prince Imhotep does not like being touched. It’s an Eastern superstition.”_ _

__“Sorry,” Mitaka sank back into his chair._ _

__“We have come here on very important business, Mister Mitaka.” Hux grinned toothily because Mitaka couldn’t see him. “Prince Imhotep would like to thank you for your eyes and tongue, but more is needed. He is bound by ancient magic to consummate the curse that you and your friends unleashed. He needs… all of you.” At this point, Mitaka was trembling with fear. Imhotep reached out and wrapped a skeletal hand around the man’s wrist._ _

__“No… please,” Mitaka pleaded, but it was too late. Hux left the room as the creature removed his mask to absorb what was left of Dopheld Mitaka. He picked up the canopic jar that sat on the man’s desk on his way out of the building. One down, three to go. Hopefully he’d be out of earshot before Mitaka screamed._ _

__*_ _

__Rey stepped into the courtyard, a pile of books in her hands. A flash of lightning and deafening thunderclap took her by surprise, making her jump and the top few books in her stack. She sighed in frustration and began to bend over to get them, only to shriek and jump once more when a hand grabbed her wrist. The rest of her books came tumbling out of her hands._ _

__“We have a slight problem.” It was Ben, and he was panting as if he’d just ran a mile. Rey opened her mouth to reply, but the words died in her throat when a bright light streaked across the sky. Only, it wasn’t lightning this time. It was fire._ _

__A ball of fire crashed into the fountain next to them, turning the water to steam. Ben pulled Rey to him protectively. Soldiers, civilians and servants ran in every direction to avoid the maelstrom. Ben and Rey took shelter under the eaves of a nearby building, which seemed to be as good a place as any. Rey looked around in fear and awe. From where they were, she could see the devastation the hail was wreaking not just in the Fort, but in all of Cairo._ _

__“I think our friend is here.” Ben shouted over the screaming. Rey looked at him, alarmed._ _

__“What makes you say that?” She squeaked. Ben looked at her incredulously and gestured to the fire raining down from above them._ _

__“I’m not sure, just a feeling I guess.” Rey grimaced at her stupidity. Then she gasped and looked over to where he had found her. It was currently on fire._ _

__“My books…” She groaned, unashamed at the sadness she felt at the loss. To her, the written word was sacred. A flicker of movement on the stairs behind them caught their attention. It was Hux. When the pasty man noticed them, he turned and started back up the steps, but Ben grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him down. Rey noticed the jar in his hands and frowned. As far as she was aware, the Americans were the only ones who had found canopic jars._ _

__“Hux, you little shit, where have you been?”_ _

__“Oh, hey Solo.” Hux stammered. Rey didn’t know what Ben was going to do to him, but a blood curdling scream stopped him before he did anything. Ben and Rey exchanged a panicked look. It was coming from Mitaka’s living quarters, which was above them. Ben let go of Hux and dashed up the stairs, and Rey followed close behind._ _

__They slid to a stop in Mitaka’s living room, staring in open-mouthed horror at the shrivelled up body on the floor. Rey gasped when she realized who it was._ _

__“Mitaka…” she breathed, reaching out for Ben’s hand. He laced his fingers through hers tightly. A floorboard creaked, causing Ben and Rey to snap to attention. Ben pulled Rey behind them when they made eye contact with the mummy - who had grown new bones, muscles and tendons from the essence he’d absorbed from the unfortunate Mr Mitaka._ _

__“Hell no,” Ben muttered when he saw what the creature was staring at. Rey. It took a step towards them. “Stay away from her.” He pulled a gun from its holster and pointed it at the monster. It ignored his warning and continued moving closer to them. Ben fired three shots in quick succession. The bullets tore through him, but Imhotep was unphased._ _

__The door behind them burst open. Finn, Phasma and Johnson entered, guns drawn. The mummy let out an inhuman cry and picked Ben up by his neck, pulling his free from Rey’s grasp and tossing him effortlessly into the new arrivals, knocking them all to the ground. He turned back to Rey and reached out for her. Rey took a shaky step backwards as he leaned in, as if to kiss her. The stench of rotting flesh filled her nose and she gagged at it._ _

__Rey’s cat - a white little thing named Beebee - jumped up onto the piano, jarringly capturing their attention with the notes he stepped on. Beebee hissed at the mummy. It shrieked in fear and disappeared out through the balcony doors in a swirl of wind and sand. Rey’s companions slowly untangled from each other with a groan. Phasma kneeled down next to Mitaka._ _

__“What are we going to do?” She muttered. Rey and Ben looked at each other. They had no idea._ _

__*_ _

__Cairo Museum of Antiquities 1926 AD_ _

__Rey led the group through the hallways of the museum as quickly as she could. Though she was afraid of what Doctor Skywalker would say to her when she saw him again, he was the only person she knew who would have any clue what to do in this situation. They rounded the corner to the Rammesseum, where they might find him, only to find him in conversation with Poe Dameron and his second in command, Rose._ _

__“You!” Rey cried. Behind her, Ben and the Americans drew their guns._ _

__“Miss Palpetine.” Luke pursed his lips at the people behind her. “Ben?”_ _

__“What are you doing here?” Rey was still focused on Dameron. She blinked and turned to face Luke. “And how do you know Ben?”_ _

__“If you get your friends to lower their guns, we can discuss this like civilised people.” Luke raised an eyebrow at her. Sometimes she really hated his face. She looked at Ben pointedly. He sighed and uncocked his gun, leading the others to do the same._ _

__“After the day we’ve had, I think we can afford a little faith.” Ben placed his gun in its holster. “It’s nice to see you, Uncle Luke.” Luke smiled at him and gestured for them to come properly into the room and take a seat. Rey looked up at Ben in surprise - _Uncle Luke?_ She’d have to leave her questions for later, though._ _

__“We are part of an ancient secret society. For over three thousand years, we have protected the City, and have sworn to do anything and everything necessary to stop the cursed priest from being discovered and brought back into this world. Because of you, we have failed our ancestors.”_ _

__“And you think this… this _job_ of yours justifies the killing of innocent people?” Rey asked incredulously._ _

__“Absolutely.” Luke replied. Poe nodded in agreement. Rey and Finn exchanged a horrified glance._ _

__“Okay… but what’s his thing about cats?” Rey was surprised Ben so easily reconciled himself with the idea of murder._ _

__“Cats are the guardians of the underworld,” Rose explained. “He’ll be afraid of them until he’s regenerated.”_ _

__“Then nothing will be able to stop him,” Luke grumbled._ _

__“You know how he regenerates? By findin’ everyone who opened that chest and sucking the essence out of ‘em!” Johnson yelled. Nobody had a response for that. Rey suddenly remembered something. She looked at Doctor Skywalker._ _

__“He called me Anck-Su-Namun.” Judging from the looks on Rose, Poe and Luke’s faces, this was something significant. “A-and today, he tried to kiss me.”_ _

__“He’s still trying to resurrect her.” Rose looked up at Poe._ _

__“And it looks like he’s chosen his human sacrifice.” Poe looked at Rey. “It was you who read from the book, wasn’t it?” Rey nodded. Luke tilted his head up to look through the skylight._ _

__“He has already begun.” Everyone looked up at his words. A solar eclipse sent darkness throughout the city._ _

__“ _‘...and he stretched forth his hand towards the heavens, and there was darkness through the land throughout the land of Egypt.’_ ” Rey wasn’t sure when Finn had memorised Bible passages, but she was sure it would get old very quickly._ _

__*_ _

__Fort Bryon At Cairo 1926 AD_ _

__“We have to stop him from regenerating.”_ _

__“Who opened the chest?” Finn asked. Rey looked at Phasma and Johnson._ _

__“Well… uh, us. And Pryde.” Phasma admitted guiltily._ _

__“What about Hux?” Ben looked up from his seated position. Phasma let out a humourless laugh._ _

__“Nah, he scrammed outta there before we opened it.” Johnson muttered. Ben nodded. It made sense, given what little Rey knew of the man’s character._ _

__“We have to find Pryde and bring him to safety.” Rey ordered._ _

__“Yeah, okay,” Ben agreed. “You wait here. Finn, Phasma, Johnson, come with me.” Everyone started protesting at once - Rey because she wanted to go, and the others because they didn’t. Ben sighed and shook his head. He stood and scooped Rey up, hoisted her over his shoulder and marched into her bedroom. She squealed as he dumped her onto the bed, and shouted indignantly when he marched out and locked her in. Ben turned to Johnson and Phasma._ _

__“She stays in here - nobody goes in or out or you will have me to answer too, and believe me, if that happens, getting drained by a mummy will be the least of your worries.” They nodded and took the key. “C’mon, Finn.”_ _

__“Oh… do I have to?” Finn gestured to his glass of whisky like it was an excuse. He must have seen something in Ben’s eyes, because he got up and followed him out the door._ _

__*_ _

__Cairo Bazaar 1926 AD_ _

__Pryde stumbled through the city’s alleyways. The eclipse had made it almost impossible to see, but Pryde knew he needed to get somewhere safe to hide from the beat that hunted him. At the thought, he clutched the Black Book closer to his chest. The jar felt like a deadweight in his other hand. Maybe he could leave it somewhere, then the creature could take it and leave him alone._ _

__As he turned a corner, he heard a rustle. On edge, he whipped around to find the source of the noise. Nothing. Pryde sighed. All this stress was driving him loopy. He carried on down the alley. Perhaps he could find the idiotic Americans he’d travelled here with. They may not have been smart, but they were damn good in a fight. That decided it. He’d head for Fort Brydon, if he could figure out where it was. He had no idea where he’d ended up - it looked like the bazaar, but there was no way to tell in this light. Pryde nodded and turned back around to continue on his way._ _

__The creature was in front of him._ _

__It reached for him._ _

__He screamed._ _

__*_ _

__Ben and Finn heard the Egyptologist’s office being ransacked long before they even got to the door. Ben pushed the door open slowly and rolled his eyes. Hux. Of course._ _

__“A little late for spring cleaning, don’t you think?” He quipped. Hux froze for a second, then made a break for the window on the other side of the room. Ben picked up a nearby chair and hurled it at Hux, hitting him right on the legs. He collapsed onto the ground with a yelp. Ben strode over to him and hauled him up by his collar._ _

__“You came back from Hamunaptra with a new friend, didn’t you.” Ben growled. It wasn’t a question._ _

__“Oh, hey Solo.” Hux stammered._ _

__“What have you done, Armitage?” The smaller man just smiled, showing off his yellowing teeth._ _

__“I haven’t done anything, I’m just choosing the winning side. You don’t stand a chance against Imhotep, he is too powerful.” Ben bared his teeth at the man._ _

__“You always were spineless, Hux.”_ _

__“And you were always stupid. I will be alive at the end of this, unlike you.” Ben resisted the urge to strangle him to death._ _

__“At the end of _what_ , exactly?”_ _

__“I don’t know, I just work for the guy!” Hux had never been a convincing liar. Ben slammed Hux into a wall, hard. “Alright, he sent me here to get the Black Book they found in Hamunaptra! He told me it would be worth its weight in gold!”_ _

__“What does he need it for? And don’t lie to me.”_ _

__“I don’t know…” Ben dragged Hux into the middle of the room and held him close to the ceiling fan. Hux looked up and gulped._ _

__“Want to think again?”_ _

__“Now that I think about it, he mentioned something about bringing his dead girlfriend back to life, but that’s it, I promise! All he wants is the book! Well, the book and your girlfriend.” Ben tensed and looked over at Finn. This second of distraction was all Hux needed to kick Ben in the groin and escape through the window. Ben sunk to the ground with a low groan. Finn patted his shoulder sympathetically._ _

__“Ever since I met you, I have had the worst luck.” He glared up at his friend. Finn just smiled brightly at him._ _

__“Thanks!” A hair-raising scream tore through the air. Finn and Ben ran over to the window in time to see people running away from a shriveled up corpse, and a man covered in dark robes. The creature pulled the book and canopic jar free from Pryde’s arms before he turned to face Ben and Finn. He’d now grown a layer of skin, but that was just from what Ben could tell from his face, the rest of him was covered._ _

__The monster smirked up at them for a moment, then unhinged his jaw and unleashed a swarm of flies straight at them. Ben and Finn hurried to slam the shutters. Judging from the screams, this made the flies spread through the bazaar._ _

__“Only two left,” Ben panted, looking at Finn._ _

__“Then he’ll be coming for Rey.” Finn replied, heaving in a breath. The two men looked at each other for a moment, then raced out of the door._ _

__*  
“Screw this! I’m going to the bar to get a drink.” Phasma grumbled. “You want anything?”_ _

__“A glass of bourbon,” Phasma nodded and headed to the door, “and a shot of bourbon!” Phasma was closing the door on him. “And a bourbon chaser!” She poked her head back through the door._ _

__“I’ll get your fucking bourbon, Johnson.” She growled and slammed the door behind her. Johnson nodded and sat back, content to look at his canopic jar. It truly was a gorgeous artifact, but he’d hoped to come home with something a little bit more substantial - like gold. This would make some museum at home very happy, though, and he was sure he could get a large sum for it._ _

__The shutters on the window were flung open by a strong wind. Johnson leaped out of his chair and drew his gun. There was nothing outside. It was just a breeze. He’d have been embarrassed to be so on edge, but there was nobody around to see him.  
A sudden wave of sand rose through the window and knocked him down. Before he could even make a sound, it picked him up. His body shrivelled as the life was sucked out of him, then was tossed aside carelessly. The sand condensed into Imhotep’s rippling form. _ _

__This regeneration had made him look almost completely human. His skin had fully developed, save for a couple of patches on his face, so he no longer needed to cover himself. He wore only a loin cloth and loose robe._ _

__Imhotep took in his surroundings, then made his way to Rey’s bedroom doors. He rattled the knob. Locked, not that that would stop him. He grinned broadly._ _

__Rey hadn’t realised how tired she was until she had nothing to do but wait for Ben and Finn. She’d fallen asleep moments after she’d gotten over her anger at Ben, and hadn’t woken up since. Sand started streaming through the keyhole in her door. Rey’s sleep became fitful in response to the creature’s presence. The pile of sand at the door solidified into its human form._ _

__*  
Ben and Finn raced to Rey’s quarters, skidding to a halt when they saw Johnson. A glance at Finn told him he wasn’t alone in thinking the monster was here. Rey’s doors were still locked, though, so there was a chance he’d left after taking the jar from Johnson. A peek through the keyhole told him he was wrong. _ _

__The creature had its disgusting, rotting lips pressed against Rey’s while she slept. Ben growled and kicked the door in with a bang. Rey’s eyes flew open and she screamed, pushing the mummy off her._ _

__“Hey, buddy! Get your own girl, this one’s mine.” Ben yelled. It turned to face him angrily and began to cross the room to him. Ben grinned at him. “I thought you’d come to visit. Look what I brought.” He held up Beebee, who hissed threateningly at the intruder. Imhotep shrieked and ran to the windows, which burst open before him. He burst into a sand whirlwind and vanished out of the window._ _

__Ben ran over to Rey, who was sitting, shell shocked, in her bed. He wiped her mouth for her and pulled her in for a hug. She held him tight, shaking in fear. Phasma came back into the room, glasses balanced on a tray in her hands. It took her a moment to notice Johnson._ _

__“You’ve got to be shitting me.”_ _

__“We have got to get out of here.” Finn mumbled. Rey glanced over at him._ _

__“We should go to the museum, I think I saw something there that might help. Do you have your car keys?” Finn nodded, so the four of them headed out. As they walked, Rey hurried to catch up with Ben, who had pulled ahead of them. He looked down at her and smiled._ _

__“Hi.”_ _

__“I’m your girl?” She said archly, an eyebrow raised. A cute blush coloured Ben’s cheeks._ _

__“What?”_ _

__“You said, and I quote, _‘get your own girl, this one’s mine’_.” She grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling with humour. Ben rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly._ _

__“Oh, uh, y’know, I just meant that you’re on our side, you’re on our team - you’re _our_ girl.” Rey did not seem convinced._ _

__“Do you want to know what I think? I think you were jealous of him.” Ben snorted._ _

__“Jealous of what?”_ _

__“Well, he kissed me before you did.” Ben’s stride faltered and his hands balled into fists._ _

__“Not for lack of trying,” he grumbled and hopped into Finn’s convertible, then helped Rey in after him. She elbowed him teasingly._ _

__“Actually I was the one that tried, I just passed out before I got there.” Phasma and Finn got into the car, putting an end to their conversation. It was just as well, Ben had no idea how to respond to her. All he knew was that she’d be the death of him, one way or another._ _

__*_ _

__Cairo Museum of Antiquities 1926 AD_ _

__Luke, Poe and Rose joined them as Rey hurried them through the halls of the museum._ _

__“A while ago, I found an inscription about the Book of the Dead, but I dismissed it because it talked about resurrecting people.”_ _

__“I hope you believe it now,” Phasma quipped. Rey led them upstairs as fast as she could, until they got to a large stone tablet on display. Outside, they could hear a faint groaning sound. Ben, Finn and Poe looked out the window._ _

__“Ah,” Finn muttered, “boils and sores.”_ _

__“There’s another book - the Book of the Living. It was supposed to be where we found the Book of the Dead, but the Bembridge Scholars must have mixed it up. If we find it, we might be able to stop him before he resurrects Anck-Su-Namun and kills us all.” The groaning got closer, revealing itself to be a monotonous chant of _‘Imhotep’_. Rose muttered that this was just the beginning of the end. “Not if I have anything to do with it.” Rey replied firmly._ _

__“Where can we find the other book?” Luke asked. Rey was reading as fast as she could._ _

__“The Scholars mixed them up… mixed up where they were buried… the Book of the Dead was inside the statue of Anubis…” The mob outside had started trying to break down the museum’s doors._ _

__“Hurry up, Rey.” Finn called over to her._ _

__“Shut up and let me work.” She snapped. “I found it! The Book of Amun-Ra is inside the Statue of Horus!” She grinned at them._ _

__“Take that, Bembridge Scholars.” Ben muttered, deeply impressed._ _

__“Where’s this statue?” Finn asked. Rey just looked at him. “Don’t tell me we have to go back there!” He groaned._ _

__“If we want to kill the creature, then yes.” Poe replied. The mob burst into the foyer._ _

__“I’ll go get the car!” Finn cried and ran off, the others following quickly behind him, just as Imhotep entered the building, Hux close behind him._ _

__Finn acted like the mindless mob, chanting the monster’s name tonelessly so he blended until he reached his car. He quickly turned it around and pulled up outside of the door they’d come out of. Seconds later, they ran out, all six of them squeezing in. Hux ran down the main steps and noticed them. He called Imhotep so they would get caught. Imhotep came to the upstairs window just as Finn sped off. As they passed Hux, Ben yelled at him._ _

__“You’ll get payback for this, Hux!” Above them, the mummy unhinged his jaws and let out a primordial screech, commanding his brainwashed followers to chase after the car. As they raced down the street, people began throwing themselves on top of the car, grabbing and pulling at anyone they could get their hands on. Behind him, Finn could hear everyone struggling to fight them off._ _

__By now, they had six or so people dangling from the car, making him regret ever getting a convertible. They were mostly hanging on at the back, where Phasma, Poe and Rose were perched dangerously. One of them got a hold of Phasma while Finn took a particularly sharp turn, and that was all it took. She was gone._ _

__*_ _

__“Don’t stop!” Ben shouted over the commotion. Finn put his foot down. A nice whisky would get rid of the guilt. They heard Phasma’s gun go off four times, then stop. She was out of bullets. A moment later, her scream filled the air, echoing off the buildings. There was no time to dwell - one of Inhotep’s followers threw themselves onto the car’s windshield, causing Finn to swerve into a produce stall and hit the wall behind it. The car sputtered then died, steam rising out of the hood. The group scrambled out of the car and ran to the steps of a nearby building. They were surrounded on all sides. Ben brandished a flaming torch to keep the people at bay._ _

__Imhotep stepped out of the crowd, fully regenerated. He was unfairly young and handsome, which rankled Rey a bit. If you’re going to be evil, at least be ugly on the outside, too. The monster smirked at them._ _

__“He’s… beautiful.” She whispered, receiving disapproving looks from her companions. “What? He is.”_ _

__“Keentah, mi pharos, aja nilo, isirian.” He held his hand out to Rey. Hux pushed out of the crowd near Imhotep._ _

__“Come with me, my princess, it is time to make you mine… forever.” He translated. Rey scowled at him._ _

__“He said _‘for all eternity’_ , you imbecile.” She corrected him, then gulped and looked up at Ben, with what she hoped was a brave face._ _

__“Oh, Lord… do you have any ideas?” Ben looked down at her, his eyes swirling with frantic desperation. He shook his head. Rey looked around, taking in the angry, armed mob, and the confident, powerful mummy they followed. He wasn’t just powerful - he was _invincible_. She looked back up at Ben. “Well, you better come up with one soon, because if he turns me into a mummy, I’m coming for you first.”_ _

__“No, don’t you dare.” He implored as she reached her hand out and slid it, trembling, into the creatures outstretched one. She turned to him once she was at Imhotep’s side._ _

__“I’ve just bought you some time - he still has to take me to Hamunaptra before he can complete the ritual. Don’t fuck it up.” The smallest smile ghosted across Ben’s face at her determination. It disappeared when the creature started to lead Rey away._ _

__“Rey!” He cried, taking a step forward. One of Poe’s powerful arms shot out to stop him._ _

__“She’s right. Let her go, we’ll save her, we have time.” Ben bared his teeth angrily, but stopped struggling. Hux darted forward and pulled something out of Finn’s jacket - the key._ _

__“Hey -” Poe stopped him from chasing them as well. The crowd parted for Imhotep and Rey, and the monster turned back for one last smug look at Ben._ _

__“Pared oos.” He said with a grin. Rey cried out and tried to run back to them, but was stopped by the creature’s inhuman strength. Hux smiled and gave Ben a mocking salute as he ran after his master. The crowd began to descend on them. It didn’t take an expert to be able to tell that he’d ordered them to kill. Rose knelt down and pulled a manhole cover from the ground._ _

__“C’mon!” She grabbed Finn’s hand and dragged him over, then shoved him into it. Poe and Luke quickly followed, then she went after. Ben threw his torch into the mob and slid down after them, pulling the cover over the hole on his way down._ _

__*_ _

__Erfoud Dunes 1926 AD_ _

__Ben led the rest of them to the only place he could think of to go - home. His parents lived in a small house just outside of the city, where his father could go for joyrides in one of his planes whenever he wanted, and his mother could read in peace. He hadn’t been there in years. If things weren’t so dire, he thought maybe he’d be nervous, but he needed to get to Rey as fast as possible. If he somehow managed to live through this and save her, he’d take her to meet his family._ _

__He paused when he got to the door. His mother had painted it green when Ben was younger, but now it had faded and chipped away. Ben raised his hand and knocked twice. Luke placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder._ _

__“She’ll be happy to see you, Ben.” He knew Luke was right, but he still felt his heart rate pick up when the door began to open to reveal his mother. She looked the same as she remembered, if a little older. Her hair was twisted into the complicated hairdo she favoured, and she was wearing comfortable-yet-fashionable attire, suitable for most occasions. She looked up at his disbelievingly for a moment._ _

__“ _Ben?_ ” She breathed, then pulled him in for a surprisingly tight hug. Leia Organa might have been small, but she was strong._ _

__“Hey, mom.” He chuckled, wrapping his arms around her. “Listen, I know you want to catch up - I do too - but we’re really short on time and someone’s life is in danger. We need dad and a plane,” he looked behind him, “maybe two planes.” Leia’s eyes widened as she stepped away from him._ _

__“He’s out back with Chewie… is everything okay?”_ _

__“Just your everyday end of the world type scenario, nothing to worry about.” Finn quipped. Luke stepped forward and placed a reassuring hand on his sister’s shoulder._ _

__“I’ll fill her in, you need to go. I’d go myself, but I think my fighting days are behind me.” Ben nodded and led the other three outside, where his father and Chewie were tinkering with one of the many planes he owned._ _

__“Dad!” Han looked up, surprised, but glad to see his son was finally home. “We need your help.” As quickly as he could, Ben explained the situation, hoping beyond all hope that his dad would believe him._ _

__“Well, that would explain all the weird shit that’s been happenin’ ‘round here. We can fly you all out there, no problem.”_ _

__*_ _

__The Sahara Desert 1926 AD_ _

__Rey hadn’t anticipated how quickly Imhotep would get them back to Hamunaptra, but then again, she didn’t know he could transport people in the sand vortex he could shapeshift into. Hopefully Ben and the others could get to her quickly. If they were even still alive. She had the utmost faith in Ben, though, and believed beyond all doubt that he’d found a way to save them, and would be on his way right now._ _

__She was thrown from the vortex and into a soft dune. Hux landed on top of her with a yelp, and she hit him until he got up. Imhotep stood above them, his head tilted towards the sky as he listened to the air intently. Rey concentrated until she heard it too. There was a plane. She looked around, then spotted it, a tiny dot in the distance - no, _two_ tiny dots. Rey knew what it meant though._ _

__“ _Ben_ …” she breathed. He had come for her. Imhotep seemed to come to a similar realisation, as his face contorted in anger. His jaw unhinged and an inhuman roar tore out of his throat. A wall of sand rose through the sky and began to close in on the planes. _ _

__*_ _

__Han and Chewie were the best pilots Ben knew. Flying was his father’s entire life, and he’d come to own many planes in his sixty-odd years, some of them had even been nice._ _

__These ones were not._ _

__They were biplanes, so were in fact quite modern, but due to his father and uncle’s reckless flying, they were worse for wear. Ben sat behind his father in the gunner’s seat of a mustard yellow plane, and Rose behind Chewie in a faded green one. Finn and Poe had drawn the short straws, and were currently attached to the wings of said planes. Ben didn’t have to look at Finn to know he was scared shitless - the man’s shrieks were carried up to his ears by the wind - and he could see from his position that Poe was having the time of his life._ _

__“Kid, you might want to check this out!” His father shouted over the noise of the engine. Ben looked over his shoulder and groaned. There was a huge wall of sand speeding towards them. His father and Chewie both swerved and dived and evaded it as best they could, but pretty soon it trapped them. A giant face appeared in the sand, grinning at them. As Ben had suspected, this was the mummy’s doing. He grabbed the gun in front of him and began unloading it into the sand, blasting the face away. It began to laugh, then it’s jaws unhinged._ _

__The engines stuttered when the sand swallowed the planes. Han and Chewie fought for control of their planes, but ultimately lost. Finn and Poe screamed as they nosedived, but their pilots just laughed. After this was all over, Ben would realise that was because it was the most fun they’d had in ages. Currently, he had decided they were clinically insane._ _

__*_ _

__Rey yelped in horror when she saw the planes disappear into the sand. She scrambled to her feet and ran over to Imhotep. She needed to stop him, somehow. She placed a hand on his (surprisingly muscular) arm.  
“Stop,” she cried, “you’ll kill them!” Behind her, Hux snorted mirthlessly._ _

__“What did you think he was trying to do? Exfoliate their skin?” She gave him a cutting glare, then tried to think. Her words had made no impact on the monster before her. Then an idea hit her. A terrible idea, possibly the worst she’d ever come up with.  
But it was all she had._ _

__She grabbed Imhotep’s face, and pulled it down to hers, engaging him in a passionate kiss. He froze for a moment, then closed his eyes and kissed her back fiercely. Her eyes remained open, looking over his shoulder so she could see the planes. After a second, the sand disappeared. She pushed Imhotep away and cheered in victory as the planes righted themselves. For a moment, everything seemed fixable._ _

__Then the planes dropped out of the air._ _

__Beside her, Imhotep laughed._ _

__*_ _

__The dunes did very little to cushion the crash. Ben was tossed from the gunner seat, and the wing Finn was strapped to was stuck upright in the sand, leaving him dangling in the air. The other plane had managed to stay the right way up, leaving Rose and Chewie to untether Poe from the wing. Han grumbled as he struggled out of his seat._ _

__“Excuse me! _Excuse me!_ A little help would be nice if it isn’t too much trouble!” Finn yelled, writhing against his bindings. Ben chuckled and moved to untie him, and let him drop to the ground with an undignified yelp. Poe and Rose took the Lewis guns from the gunner positions, and the cartridge belts from below the seats. The ground beneath their feet rumbled._ _

__“Get back!” Ben yanked Finn out of the way before he started sinking with the planes._ _

__“Damn quicksand…” Han grumbled. Ben grimaced._ _

__“Sorry ‘bout your planes, dad.”_ _

__“‘S alright, kid. Gotta save your damsel in distress, though. Where’s this city?” Ben pointed in the general direction of Hamunaptra, and they set off._ _

__*_ _

__The necropolis, fittingly, smelled like death. The smell hung warm and heavy in the air. Rey felt like it was smothering her. She gagged as Imhotep led them wherever he wanted to go, and felt Hux’s gun press against her lower back. At least, she hoped it was his gun. Imhotep stopped in a mausoleum full of gravestones and the biggest rats she’d ever seen. Rey turned to face Hux, her teeth bared in anger._ _

__“You know, horrid little creatures like you always get their comeuppance.” Her voice was low, threatening. Hux gulped._ _

__“Really?” His voice trembled with fear. She smiled at him._ _

__“Yes. It’s inevitable.” Rey turned away and continued to follow Imhotep, who had now made his way over a moat. She looked down and wrinkled her nose; the water was murky, almost black, and it had bits of rotten… something floating in it. She didn’t know what it was, and she didn’t want to know._ _

__*_ _

__Once they’d got to the city, Ben let Poe and Rose lead the way. They seemed to know where the ritual would take place, and approximately how much time they had left. Ben tried his hardest not to think about the time part, if he did he was sure he’d explode. He just focussed on getting to Rey. In fact, he focused on that so hard that he walked directly into Poe’s back when the man came to an abrupt stop. Ben looked up to apologise, but the words died in his mouth._ _

__The doorway they needed to go through was blocked by rubble._ _

__He sighed and began shifting rocks with help of everyone but Finn, who’d elected to stand behind them with a torch and order them around. Ben clenched his jaw and tried to push through the temptation to throw one of the chunks of rock at him.  
He should have been suspicious when Finn stopped talking, but he could only be relieved. That was, until Finn started screaming. Ben immediately dropped the bit of rubble he was holding and ran over to him. There was a lump under Finn’s skin, and it was quickly making its way up his arm. Ben gestured for Poe to restrain him, then pulled out a butterfly knife. Finn yelped when it flicked open and struggled against Poe. Ben grabbed Finn’s arm and cut it open, flicking whatever was inside him onto the floor.  
The scarab immediately began scuttling back to Finn to finish the job. Ben shot it as Rose wrapped up Finn’s wound with fabric from her robes._ _

__*_ _

__Rey knew who the gunshot belonged too as it echoed throughout the room. Imhotep brought them to a halt at a strange looking altar and looked around._ _

__“Ben!” She breathed, a smile appearing on her face before she could stop it. The creature scowled furiously and reached into a canopic jar, pulling out a handful of dust. He read an incantation from the Black Book and blew the dust against the mausoleum wall.  
The smile fell from Rey’s face when something inside the wall started moving. She took a step away, and Hux mirrored the movement next to her. Two rotten, deformed mummies climbed out of the rock. They bowed to Imhotep as he ordered them to find the others and kill them. Rey clenched her hands into fists by her sides._ _

__“Don’t hurt them!” She growled, facing him as menacingly as she could. Imhotep’s beautiful features contorted with anger. He raised a hand and struck her on the side of the head, sending her flying back. Everything went dark before she hit the ground._ _

__*_ _

__Poe and Ben led the group towards the mausoleum, where - according to the Medjai - Imhotep would need to be to perform the ritual. They stepped into a room that seemed to be a dark void. It was too big for their torches to illuminate it fully. A thin sliver of shone from a crevice in the ceiling, stopping against a reflective surface at the wall. Suddenly, Ben was brought back to his first day in the city with Rey. An idea struck him._ _

__He pulled one of his guns out of his holster and fired, hitting the mirror’s pedestal and turning it into the light, lighting up the whole room with the rest of the mirrors. His jaw dropped._ _

__They’d found the treasure chamber._ _

__Gold and jewels sparkled in the light, everso tempting despite their imminent doom. He felt Finn come to a stop beside him._ _

__“Can we just…” he breathed, unable to take his eyes off the gold._ _

__“No,” Ben replied, descending the steps into the room._ _

__“Not even a little?” Finn hurried to catch up._ _

__“No.” Finn grumbled but followed them through the room nonetheless. They’d almost crossed the room when the sand ahead of them broke apart. Hands shot out in every direction, clawing their way to the surface. _Great_ , Ben thought, _more mummies_._ _

__“Imhotep’s cursed priests.” Rose filled them in. The hoard advanced towards them at snail’s pace, growling inhumanly as they limped forwards. Rose and Poe glanced at Ben and raised their Lewis guns, prompting Ben to cock his elephant gun. The three open fired, blasting the mummies to pieces. When they stopped shooting, the separate bits of mummy began writhing and wriggling towards them once more, following behind the mummies that hadn’t been caught in the crossfire. The group hauled ass out of the treasure chamber._ _

__*_ _

__Rey’s eyes slowly fluttered open. At first glance, she wasn’t sure where she was, but the foul stench floating through the air told her she was at least near the mausoleum. It took her a moment to realise she was chained down. She struggled against her bindings and rolled over - then came face to face with the mangled, rotting face of a mummy._ _

__Her scream echoed throughout the room._ _

__*_ _

__The group skidded to a halt once they reached a small chamber. Behind them, they could still hear the groaning and shuffling of the mummies, but it was what was ahead of them that made them stop._ _

__The Statue of Horus._ _

__Ben could hear their pursuers gaining on them, so he reached into his gunny sack and pulled out a stick of dynamite and a match. It was only then that he realised he had no way of lighting it. He glanced around for a rough surface, his gaze landing on Poe’s stubbly face. It might just work, and would come with the added benefit of pissing Poe off._ _

__He reached out and swiped the match across Poe’s stubble. The other man yelped and scowled at Ben, but the match lit up. Ben lit the fuse and threw the dynamite at the mummies who had swarmed to the entrance, then ducked behind the statue to shield himself from flying debris.The mummies that were caught in the blast were destroyed, but more began to shuffle down the passage. Poe reached out and took Rose’s gun off her._ _

__“Get the book, kill the creature.” He nodded at her. Rose’s eyes widened as she watched him leave. Moments later they could hear the guns going off. Rose blinked and turned back to them, directing them to open the secret compartment and get the book._ _

__*_ _

__The gold shone so brightly Hux almost couldn’t bear it. Mountains of golden objects were piled high to the ceiling, and stretched as far as the eye could see. It occurred to Hux then that he could simply take what he wanted, and leave before Imhotep even noticed his disappearance. He glanced at the satchel he had on him. It had various personal items in it, but he emptied them onto the ground anyway. Everything in there could easily be replaced - he was about to become very rich indeed!_ _

__He tore into the pile nearest him, stuffing as much gold as he could fit into the bag._ _

__*_ _

__Rey couldn’t help but struggle helplessly against her restraints. She tugged and twisted but they didn’t give way. She only stopped when the mummified priests surrounded her and dropped to the ground. Their chanting was almost unintelligible due to their lack of tongues. Imhotep appeared to her left, hovering over Anck-Su-Namun with the Black Book in his hands. He reached out and stroked the mummy’s face reverently. Rey couldn’t help but think that maybe Ben and Finn weren’t going to get to her on time.  
Imhotep began to read from the book, his priests swaying and chanting in the background. Rey gasped when a swirling black mist rose from the pool of water near them. It floated through the air above her and settled into the body next to her. She struggled harder against the chains as Anck-Su-Namun shuddered to life. Imhotep’s voice grew louder and the mummy’s empty eyes flew open, the empty sockets boring into Rey’s very soul._ _

__The only thing that dragged her gaze away from the writhing body next to her was the glint of the blade in Imhotep’s hand. Rey screamed and twisted against her chains as he poised above her, preparing to bring the blade down into her chest. Her eyes slammed closed when he drew his arm back._ _

__“Rey!” Finn’s voice rang through the room. “I found the book!” Imhotep whipped around to face the intruder. Rey strained to see him, standing at the top of the stairs opposite her, brandishing a book of pure gold. Ben burst into the room behind Finn, and had three people run in behind him - only one of whom she recognised._ _

__Ben grabbed a sword from one of the nearby statues and raced towards her, vaulting over the priests and striking the knife out of Imhotep’s hand. The priests stopped chanting and took up arms against him at the High Priest’s command. Rey watched in horror as they surrounded him._ _

__“Open the book Finn! It’s the only way we can stop him!” She screeched. Rose and the two men they’d arrived with joined the fray, but there were still an overwhelming number of mummies._ _

__“It’s locked - I need the key!” Finn shouted back. Ben managed to tear his way through the priests to reach her. He brought his sword down on the chain on her right arm, freeing it._ _

__“It’s in his pocket!” Imhotep began advancing on Finn._ _

__“Now what?” Finn cried as he backed away from the creature._ _

__“Read the inscription on the cover, it ought to do something!” Ben managed to free her right leg before some mummies dragged him away. Rey propped herself up so she could see Finn better. He was trying to read the inscription and get away from Imhotep at the same time, but the panic combined with his poor understanding of the language was making it an extremely difficult task. He fell onto his ass before he finished the inscription, stalling in fear as Imhotep drew closer._ _

__More mummies broke free of the walls, though these ones were dressed in ornate uniforms and carried large scythes. Guardians of Horus, Rey realised. They lined up in perfect formation, awaiting orders - but not from Finn. Imhotep smirked in victory as he pointed to Ben and ordered them to kill him. Ben yelped and surged towards Rey, quickly freeing her other two limbs before turning to face his new opponents._ _

__Rey slid off the altar and began to move towards Ben, but was stopped by the iron grip of a skeletal hand. She whipped around, only to come face to face with the corpse of Anck-Su-Namun. She cried out and stumbled backwards, but Anck-Su-Namun kept following her._ _

__“How do we kill these things, Rey?” Finn shouted, still trying to escape from Imhotep._ _

__“Finish the inscription you idiot, then you’ll be able to control them!”_ _

__“Right!” Finn didn’t sound too sure about it. Anck-Su-Namun launched herself at Rey, who dodged her as best she could. Finn fumbled trying to read the hieroglyphs. “I can’t figure out this last symbol!”_ _

__“Describe it to me!” Rey managed to reply before her attacker managed to grab her by the throat and pin her against the wall._ _

__“It’s a kind of bird - a stork!_ _

__“A-amenophus!” She wheezed, her vision blurring with lack of oxygen._ _

__“Oh yes!” Finn whooped in delight. “Hoontash im Amenophus!” The Guards halted in their pursuit of Ben, their weapons mere milimetres from his body. Finn hurriedly ordered them to kill Anck-Su-Namun. Imhotep cried out in rage as they no longer responded to his commands. Finn used his moment of distraction to reach into his billowing robes and pull out the key. Anck-Su-Namun’s dying cries reverberated through the walls as the Guards hacked her to pieces. Imhotep roared in rage and despair, then began to stride towards Ben. Finn ran over to Rey with the book._ _

__“You guys keep him busy!” Rey ordered as they unlocked the book so she could find the right incantation. It was easier said than done, they were no match for the creatures superhuman speed and strength, so they were mostly just taking hits and getting thrown around._ _

__Rey scanned the pages of the book as quickly as she could, only looking up once when she heard them all cry out in horror. Her eyes widened as she watched Imhotep reattach his arm - which she assumed Ben had cut off - then grab Ben by the throat and send him soaring through the air. It was clear to Rey, in her brief moment of observation, that Ben had taken most of the hits. He was battered and bruised, and was so weak he could barely get back up - but he did. Rey turned back to the book._ _

__She let out a gleeful cheer when she found the right page, taking the book from Finn and turning to face Imhotep, who was now picking Ben up by his throat. Rey smiled as she read the inscription._ _

__“Kadeesh mal, kadeesh mal! Pared oos, pared oos!” Imhotep whirled around to face Rey, discarding Ben to one side. Rose and the two men helped him to his feet once more. Imhotep took one step towards Rey, then froze, his eyes on the swirling pool of water by the altar. Rey jumped back when the glowing spirits of Egyptian gods burst from the water. They charged around the room in a ghostly chariot, first turning the priests to dust, then they came for Imhotep._ _

__The spirits merely passed through him, pulling a shining white light from him, then disappearing back into the water. He didn’t die. Ben walked up to the creature and plunged a sword into his chest._ _

__“I thought you said it would kill him.” Finn muttered. Rey shook her head._ _

__“He’s mortal, now.” Imhotep looked down at his wound, his eyes widening in horror when he saw blood pouring from it. He staggered backwards and fell into the water, locking eyes with Rey. He spat something in Ancient Egyptian as he sank into the darkness below._ _

__“What was that?” Ben panted. Rey shuddered._ _

__“Death is only the beginning.”_ _

__*_ _

__Hux staggered under the weight of the bags he’d filled with treasure. He had been about to escape with his satchel, but once he’d found a camel, he realised what a waste it would be to return to Cairo with just one bag, so he’d gone back to the treasure chamber with the saddlebags. They were now proving to be too heavy for him, though._ _

__It was then he noticed a sliver of rock sticking out of the wall, and a stroke of genius crossed him. He shrugged the bags off his shoulders and onto the rock, then sank down onto the sand to catch his breath. A second later, the weight of the treasure pulled the rock downwards. Hux watched in horror for a moment as the walls at the ends of the passage began to lower._ _

__*_ _

__Ben grabbed Rey’s hand and pulled her forward as soon as the walls began to sink and sand started pouring into the room. The group hauled ass towards the exit without a backwards glance. As they passed the pool of water, Finn stumbled. The Book of Amun-Ra flew out of his hands and skidded into the depths. Rey cried out in horror and tugged herself free of Ben’s grip._ _

__“Finn!” She gasped as she looked into the pool. Ben ran back and grabbed her hand again._ _

__“Come _on_ ,” he muttered as he pulled her away. They had to do an awkward crouch-run as the ceilings in the passages got too low, until they reached the treasure chamber. This time, it was Finn’s turn to slow down, but Rose kept him on track with a firm shove. The six of them sprinted to the lowering doorway on the opposite side of the room, barely noticing when they were joined by Hux. Han and Chewie managed to duck under the gap before it was too small, then Finn and Rose were able to dive through, and finally Rey and Ben, who had to crawl as fast as they could. Only Hux was left on the other side, and the gap was too small for him. He reached out to them desperately._ _

__“Solo!” Ben reached out and grasped his arm, but it was too late. The two men managed to pull their arms back before the door hit the ground. Hux was trapped on the other side._ _

__*_ _

__Hux whipped around to face the other exits, only to watch them slam shut before he could reach them. The roof above him began to lower, and sand bagan to pour into the room. All he could do was watch in dismay until the roof crushed the mirror that was filtering light into the room, barely giving him time to grab a torch off the wall before everything went dark._ _

__A high pitched chittering filled the air, and all it took was for Hux to blink once before he was surrounded by shining blue scarab beetles. They gave him wide berth, assembling around him in a perfect circle. Hux gulped in fear as they watched him hungrily. His torch went out. The beetles swarmed on him_ _

__*_ _

__The entire city was caving in when they finally made it out of the temple. The group had to dodge falling pillars and collapsing buildings as they ran towards their camels. Once they were out of the city, they turned to watch it disappear in a billowing cloud of sand and dust. Relief washed over them all._ _

__“All that, and we don’t have anything to show for it…” Finn murmured dejectedly. Rose patted his shoulder sympathetically. Ben just smiled down at Rey._ _

__“Can’t say I agree.” He replied, his voice a low rumble. Rey blushed as she returned his smile, then pulled him down for a fierce kiss. Ben ignored the disgusted noises coming from their companions as he returned it. The pair jumped apart when Finn shrieked.  
Poe was there, riding a camel of his own. He’d come up behind Finn and grabbed him, scaring the shit out of the poor man. Rey giggled at her friend. Ben shook his head in awe at the Medjai leader._ _

__“You crazy son of a bitch, you just refuse to die.” Poe grinned back at him._ _

__“On behalf of my people, I would like to thank you.” He bowed his head respectfully._ _

__“If you’re ever in Cairo, feel free to pop in.” Rey smiled at him._ _

__“Or if we accidentally resurrect another mummy.” Finn nudged Rose playfully. The smaller woman rolled her eyes at him as she tried to hide her smile. They said their goodbyes to their Medjai friends as it came time to part ways. Rose and Poe rode further out into the desert to rejoin their people, in the opposite direction to Cairo. Ben mounted his camel, then reached down to hoist Rey up in front of him. She leaned back into his chest and gave a contented sigh as the five of them set off home._ _

__Behind them, in a bag attached to the back of Finn’s camel, the dimming light of the sunset glinted off Hux’s stolen treasure, unnoticed by the group. That was okay, though, they had plenty of time ahead of them to find it._ _


End file.
